But I Stood In The Background
by Cheshire Grin
Summary: COMPLETE! Maho is falling apart. Asaba is losing himself. The blossoming romance between Arima and Miyazawa has effects far beyond expected as their friends are pushed further into the background of the story...
1. At the Devil's invitation

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction By Cheshire Grin  
  
Disclaimer: [ insert appropriate "I don't own Kare Kano" comment here]  
  
A speech for defence: This Fic is all about Izawa Maho. Yes... Maho. I happen to like Maho. I feel she is perhaps one of the most interesting characters in the series. Don't agree? Then read this and watch the show again. Do agree? Good. Now you can use the force. So if you like Maho, keep reading and even if you don't like her, keep reading anyways. Most importantly, let me know what you think.  
  
* * *  
  
Chapter 1 - At the Devil's Invitation  
  
Life is often a strange and uncomfortable experience for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to go jump off the nearest tall building because of it. I'm not like that but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy my life. It seems so unfair sometimes. Well, scratch that.... It seems unfair all the time.  
  
I was always a bright girl. My early school records were exemplary. I did well in practically all of my subjects, didn't cause any trouble and harboured no ill feeling toward anybody. I got on well with my teachers and parents and did what I was told.  
  
Looking back on it now, it's hard to realise how much I've changed and even harder to pinpoint the places and reasons for these changes. I think that a big part of it all is that I am naturally a very shy and quiet person. I always find it difficult to confront people, and even now, when I know how, it's still not any easier. I feel an almost unbearable urge to back down in the face of pressure, convinced that I could, just could possibly be wrong, however unlikely it may sometimes seem.  
  
Despite this, I found early school relatively easy. I simply did what I was told and seeing that I did well, I became focused on staying that way and becoming better. And I did. I was the best.  
  
The problem with that was that I got used to it. I was spoiled by it. I took it for granted that despite the fact that life was often lonely and uncomfortable, I was good at it. I had the cushion of my ability to keep me from becoming lost. It kept me afloat in an uneasy classroom world of pressure and intimidation.  
  
I've never found people easy to deal with. They always get too close to me. They often in their ignorance intrude in places where I keep fragile thoughts and feelings, to easily and unwittingly broken by a blunt, unthinking criticism or a disapproving sneer. These things are usually very difficult to replace and even if they aren't, it always hurts in the worst possible way. So I always kept my distance from people, raised an invisible but very real barrier around my heart that let people as close to it as I could deal with and no further. Even the people that I would eventually come to think of as friends were blocked by this wall, because by that time I had forgetten how to lower it.  
  
It's sad how early we learn to block each other out. I learnt to do so very early in life, sometime in the first few years of school. I still remember how it happened.  
  
There was a boy I was friends with. His name was Yuri. During lunchtime we used to eat together. One particular day we were sharing an ice-cream he had bought. I remember thinking how kind he was and mentally comparing him to a hero in my favourite cartoon.  
  
At that moment a group of girls ran past us giggling. When they saw us they stopped and pointed. As one they sang a nasty little rhyme that was quite popular back then.  
  
"Yuri and Maho sitting in a tree. K. I. S. S. I. N. G. First comes love, then comes marriage, Then comes a baby in a baby-carriage!"  
  
They all laughed and collapsed in hysterics while Yuri and I sat there, red- faced and miserable with shame until they finally ran off. That was when a change seemed to come over Yuri. The grimace on his reddened, shamed countenance slowly became anger and he suddenly shoved me back and stood up, making the half-melted ice cream drop into my lap and thoroughly coat the front of my dress.  
  
"Stupid Girl!" He shouted at me, tears streaking his cheeks. "Go away! I HATE you!"  
  
Seconds later he ran off. I remeber crying miserably for the rest of lunchtime, thinking of what my mother would say when she saw my dress. I was so upset that I was late for class and scolded by the teacher.  
  
We never ate lunch together again. In fact, we never even spoke again. He avoided me like the plague.  
  
Of all the people in the world, children can be the cruelest. They can also be the most vulnerable.  
  
After that incident, I started spending more time alone. I had never had that many friends, I was too shy, and I was terrified that if I tried to be friendly with anyone else, they would hurt me like Yuri and the sing-song girls did. I concentrated on my work and kept to the background of any social groups, trying deperately to keep myself from attracting any unfavourable attention.  
  
It worked for a while. I achieved a kind remoteness, like an unattainable superiority. I found myself detached from my classmates. That was when a strange thing happened. My indifference to them seemed to work in my favour. The sly comments I had been ignoring for years started to taper off. They started to ask me questions about their schoolwork. The stares changed from distrust to awe. I had surpassed them all, I was better than them all and now it seemed that they realized this and they needed me.  
  
I finally found myself treated with respect. My classmates came to me for help, heads bowed as if ashamed of their own stupidity. They started to do things for me. I was suspicious of this at first until I realized they wanted my help in return. Before long I found that by helping them, I could get all sorts of things in return.  
  
I never let down my wall of indifference however. My newfound popularity was still too full of the unknown for me to do that. On top of this I found that if I was too nice, then my classmates asked for too much. So I kept up cold demeanor. I knew they didn't really like me. They only needed my help. There was a big difference.  
  
I think the biggest mistake of my life was that I forgot that somewhere along the line.  
  
I soon found how lonely it could be at the top. I had been feeling this all my life, but only now with so many people trying to get on my good side did the loneliness reach an unbearable level. Before this, there had always been little I could do about it and I never really realized how lonely I was. It had been a universal constant, something that had always been there, but now I began to realize I could change it. There was only one little problem. I was terrified.  
  
My intelligence and the other student's need for it had provided me with a cushion from the bullying of the children but they had never really accepted me into their circles. I found myself pushed into the background of social life. I had wanted to keep others at a distance and now they wanted the same. I made them uncomfortable. I was terrifying to them, I think. Too clever for them ever to feel comfortable, and by now I knew that I could not drop my shield because didn't know how to survive without it. There were no other places for me. If I was no longer the clever one, then what was I? Who was I? I had no friends to go to. No one needed me if I couldn't help them with their schoolwork.  
  
So I found myself in limbo. I was far too terrified to drop my defenses, but miserable and lonely because of them.  
  
A weird space seemed to open inside me. It started to suck me in. It was like I was being compressed into myself, shriveling away and becoming smaller and smaller until one day I would just disappear completely. I couldn't stop it. It only seemed to be banished be the proximity of other people.  
  
The last year of elementary school was hell. I felt myself disappearing bit by bit. The loneliness was all-consuming. I would come home from school and cry into my pillow. I was angry at something but I wasn't sure what. I felt like a bomb, full of anger and pain but none of it going anywhere or directed at anything, just seemingly going round and round inside me, growing bigger and bigger until I felt my head would explode. Sometimes it got so bad that I hit my head against my bedroom wall until the pain was replaced by another more understandable kind of pain. A pain I could deal with, one that could be explained, one that didn't hurt as much.  
  
In many ways, starting junior high school was a blessing. Depite all the demons in the back of my mind, I had kept up with my work, shown aptitude and despite all the odds, retained the model student persona I had created. It earned me a path that few of my fellow elementary school students could follow. I was accepted into a far more prestigious high school than most of the others could hope for.  
  
A new start. Escape. Salvation.  
  
Or so I thought at the time.  
  
That was the period of my life when things really kicked into overdrive. The onset of adolesence added a strange surreality to life at my new school. The sudden change from child to something not quite adult brought a new level of acceptance and even respect. A new uniform, new responsibilities, the beginings of a new body. The chance for a new beginning.  
  
Everyone was so proud of me! My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. "You're in high school now. You're all grown up now, honey. I'm so pround of you!" said my parents. 'That's right,' I thought. 'I've grown up now. I'm older now, so I've got to be stonger.'  
  
Sometime during my first year of junior high that thought became an obsession.  
  
My first few weeks were simply overwhelming. I can't really remember a great deal of what happened then, only that it seemed the world had turned upside down. It was so strange. Everyone was so different after a long summer holiday. Even I was different. I had grown taller, stronger, and more womanly almost overnight.  
  
Yet, it wasn't just my body that had grown but my views and interests too. Certain things became far more important than they had ever seemed before. Like having friends.  
  
The summer seemed to have changed almost everybody else too. I wasn't going to school with children now. They were teenagers. They suddenly weren't interested in toys and nursery rhymes anymore. They were interested in music, movies and gossip. They were interested in fashion idols, their friends and clothes. And boys.  
  
I was never exactly sure whether I became interested in exactly the same things at my insistance or theirs.  
  
But I was interested.  
  
Finding my place was a lot harder this time. I was relearning what I knew about life and I had never had the chance to build up my small reserve of confidence that I suspected they had had. I felt even more lost than ever for a time. I watched my classmates constantly. They way they acted together. They ways they laughed and teased and giggled like fools. The way they enjoyed being together.  
  
I wanted to be with them. I wanted to laugh and giggle with them. Gods, I wanted to be them. But I stood in the background because I didn't know how, simply watching and wanting and feeling angrier at myself each day.  
  
Before too long it all came to a catalyst as everything seems to do when you are a teenager. It's as if our bodies are a strange mix of unfamiliar chemicals just waiting for an accidental element to be thrown in and cause an explosive reaction.  
  
It was during lunch break. I was sitting on a bench in the courtyard, not too far from a group of girls whom I admired. They were strong and confident and outspoken, in short they were everything that I was not and wanted to be. I had heard the teachers mutter to each other that these girls were troublemakers. "Delinquents" they had called them. I didn't care. I thought they were great. I wanted to be just like them.  
  
I was absently watching them while I ate my lunch. I noticed one of the boys in our class walk casually up to them. I think he was one of the more popular guys but I couldn't be sure. My memory of this moment has always seemed somewhat less than real.  
  
They talked for a while and then the girls suddenly laughed. The boy turned bright red and shouted at them. That made them laugh even harder. Angrily the boy stalked away in my direction. I must have been gaping at him because he turned to me and growled "What are you looking at? You're even dumber than they are!" With a sneer he pushed me back off the bench. "That ought to teach you stupid girls some manners!" he laughed and turned away.  
  
For a moment I just lay there, with my back on the ground and my legs still dangling over the bench, my underwear on view to half the world. I almost cried. I think if I had cried then everything that came later on in my life may have been different. But I didn't cry. I was too angry to cry.  
  
I scrambled to my feet, nearly tripping over my bento that was now strewn all over the ground beside me. I don't recall being aware of the cuts that the wooden bench had left on the insides of my knees or the girls I had been watching suddenly standing up. I was angrier than I had ever been before or have since. I didn't know what to do. So I ran after him and swung a wild fist at the back of his neck.  
  
I connected with a dull thud and an explosion of pain in my knuckles. The boy wheeled around in shock. I couldn't punch him again because my hand had gone numb and almost useless, so I did something else that I had never done before nor since. I kicked him squarely between the legs.  
  
I remember him collapsing with a shriek that died gradually to a low groan. I remember screaming something at him hysterically but I don't remember what it was. I remember the group of girls I had admired earlier approach me.  
  
"Wow, that was really something!" said one.  
  
"Yeah but he totally deserved it. What an asshole!" continued another.  
  
I nodded dumbly, impressed. I had never heard another girl say that word.  
  
"You're name's Maho, right?" queried the first girl. I nodded again.  
  
"Way to go, Maho-san"  
  
I remember feeling suddenly very tired and replying "I think I'll go home now." I remember walking out the school gate toward my home.  
  
I don't remember anything else about that day.  
  
I noticed the girls standing outside the gate as I walked into school the next day. I was worrying about what was going to happen to me. I just knew that I would have to be punished for kicking the boy. I had never been punished before in school. "Maybe I'll be expelled?" I thought.  
  
As I walked near the gate, the girls called me over.  
  
"Hey Maho!"  
  
"Um... y-yeah" I stammered, still quaking with fear inside at the thought of being expelled.  
  
"Whats wrong? You look kinda down."  
  
"Well I uh.. I was just w-wondering how the schools going to p-punish me about uhh..... well about yesterday." I squeaked.  
  
"Oh.. don't worry about that, silly! We talked to the principal yesterday afternoon and explained it all to him. He was pretty angry at first but after we explained what that baka Hiro did first, He said that 'extenuating circumstances might be made.' " She quoted in a bad imitation of the Headmaster.  
  
Her friends chuckled.  
  
"Really" I blurted out.  
  
"Really! Don't worry about it Maho-chan. Besides, it was sooo cool the way you hit him. The whole school's talking about it"  
  
"Yeah, you are so cool Maho!" Said a second girl.  
  
"Does your hand hurt much?" asked a third.  
  
"Hey", Interupted the first girl, "Why don't you have lunch with us today?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, come on Maho" they chorused, pushing me ahead of them toward school as the bell rang.  
  
"Ok, Ok... I'm coming" I said as walked to class. They followed me all the way. I felt wonderful. I felt strong.  
  
I think that was the moment when I began the mistake that got me where I am now. Because at that moment I felt better than I ever had before... I felt strong, powerful and in control... and I didn't want to let it go.  
  
End Chapter One.  
  
Wow... This will be longer than I originally intended. C & C Please!!! Thanks for reading this far.  
  
Cheshire Grin 


	2. Weakness makes you whole

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction By Cheshire Grin  
  
Disclaimer: [ insert appropriate "I don't own Kare Kano" comment here]  
  
Note: Here the story starts on a new track and we won't see Maho in this chapter. This is where the other character I had been planning to introduce comes in, Asaba Hideaki.  
  
* * *  
  
Chapter 2 - Weakness makes you whole  
  
Well, boys and girls, especially girls, welcome to another day in the life of the one and only Asaba Hideaki.  
  
Sigh.... Why do I always start things like that. That's just me I guess. Or so I'd like to think. The fact is I just have no idea how to start a diary. It's been such a long time since I've kept one. I'm not sure why I've started again after all these years, not sure why I feel the need to write these things down but it's there nonetheless.  
  
It's a pity that I've never been very good at writing. That's Arima's department, he's always been much better at this sort of thing. Still, I guess it doesn't matter very much. Its not like anyone else is gonna read this, and I couldn't ask Arima to write this for me. He's already got enough problems of his own.  
  
Well, there I go, rambling on about Arima when I had intended to talk about myself. I've never been able to concentrate on one thing for very long. I suppose that's why I've never been any good at school. Something always ends up distracting me. Usually something with long hair and a skirt.  
  
There's so much that I want to write down here, things are crowding around in my head, events, memories, needs, desires......  
  
I guess I'll start at the beginning. That's probably a good place to start, or so my mother always tells me. So lets start again shall we.  
  
* * *  
  
Ever since I can remember I've always fought with my father. Throughout my entire life he's been there, in the background, constantly. Always seeming to be better than me, smarter, stronger, angrier. There's something about him that just makes me angry. It's not something I can describe; a facet of his personality perhaps that just seems like the antithesis of my own. I'm fairly certain that he sees the same thing in me.  
  
Don't get me wrong, he's not evil and he hasn't ever beaten me or anything like that. In fact... he's really a nice enough guy in his own way, not that I would ever tell him this mind you, but he's too much of a different person.  
  
That's not really surprising I guess, we're all vastly different, everybody is. If it wasn't like that everything would be pretty boring. We wouldn't have much fun would we. Imagine a world full of millions of Asaba's. Or even worse, a world full of millions of Miyazawa's, all the same. The thought makes me shudder.  
  
If Miyazawa ever reads this....  
  
I really need to stop getting sidetracked. I also need to stop writing in pen!  
  
The fact that I was trying to get across is that my father and I are totally different people. Not just a little or even a lot. Totally. Everything we do seems stupid and unnecessary to the other. I don't really hate him, I just can't stand him. I think he feels the same about me. At least I hope so...  
  
I'm not sure what started it all, I'm not even sure if anything did. Maybe it was always there.  
  
My father is a hardworking guy. He's really clever in the accounting type way, good with numbers and figures and especially money. He's tall, overly responsible and kind of introspective. He's a lot like Arima actually... But nothing like me.  
  
I've never been the responsible type. I don't think I've ever even considered planning anything for the future. It just doesn't seem to matter. I've always believed that what will happen will happen, regardless of what I think about it. I just try to live in the moment and enjoy it while I can. True... It doesn't always work out to be that enjoyable but.... I just wouldn't feel comfortable any other way.  
  
So I guess you can see how my father and I were pretty much destined to disagree. Nothing we ever did was enough to satisfy the other. Pretty soon we stopped trying altogether. We ended up prowling around each other like two tomcats around a dead fish, keeping our distance, silently watching and disapproving, waiting for the other to make a move.  
  
That's why I left.  
  
I guess I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't continue to stand up to him. I didn't want to. I was not really strong enough to force the issue or to keep myself on a level he couldn't reach me. I didn't want to be like him, didn't want to be him and I sure as hell was not going to let him make me that way.  
  
So I started looking for a way out. I probably wasn't even aware I was doing just that when I started. I started glancing at apartments in real- estate shop windows as I walked home from school. Soon those glances became more and more interested. My mind just started to absently consider it. Could I afford it? Could I manage? What would it be like to live by myself?  
  
The ideas were attractive. I've always thought of myself in a mixed fashion. In many ways I'm a child, full of energy and interest, distracted by everything... wanting to be a part of everything. In other ways I'm grown up and mature. The way I look at people tells me that. The way they make me feel. Girls in particular. The desires hidden just behind the mind's eye. The things I want.  
  
I've always wanted everyone to love me. I was gifted with good looks from early on and at sometime during adolescence the girls I knew became very interested in me. I attracted a kind of following. At that time I didn't really want a relationship. I wasn't ready for one. I was miserable and lonely and I felt unloved. The fan clubs that grew seemed to fill the gap. I had all these pretty girls around me all the time, vying for my affections, loving me.  
  
I felt like I could say to my father, "Hey! Look at me, I know you don't love me but they do. It doesn't matter anymore. I don't need you to love me because other people do now."  
  
I liked feeling like that. It gave me strength when nothing else could. It was a strength I desperately needed.  
  
My body, my father, my personality. They've never made me feel strong. Never. Because I'm not strong. I'm beautiful but I could never fight for someone. I can try and ignore my father but I can't deal with him. I'm friendly but that's because I could not push anybody away.  
  
The adoration gave me strength. It gave me something that I could say was mine. It gave me something that I could be, a niche that I could escape into and a blanket I could pull over myself and hide under.  
  
It was a safety that just wasn't there at home. Home felt like a battlefield. I felt like I was fighting my father to try and make him love me. Fighting myself so he would love me. I didn't want to be a soldier. I've never wanted to fight anybody.  
  
So when I looked at the apartments in the shop window I found the last door to my own life. I could distance myself from my father; take away the need to fight him.  
  
The last step needed to escape. It scared the crap out of me. But I wanted to take it. I already knew I was going to try. I just needed a way.  
  
For a few weeks I did nothing. I just considered it, rolling the thought back and forth in my mind, wondering how to arrange it, whether I should and whether I even could for that matter.  
  
What would I say? How could I convince my parents to let me move out? How could I afford it? I had no job. I was still a student. I had never worried about money much before. My parents gave me a reasonable enough allowance and I had never really needed any more than that.  
  
Quitting school to look for work was unacceptable. My parents would never let me and if I did it anyway I would never hear the end of it. I would also lose the one thing that made me feel better about life, my crowd of adoring schoolgirls. Besides, who would hire someone my age full-time? So that wasn't an option, what was left?  
  
Unfortunately I couldn't think of anything.  
  
My chance came a week later when a rather unsavory rumor came out at school. Apparently a teacher had gotten a little too involved with a student and was not quite as cautious about it as he should have been. There was a huge fuss over the matter that ended with the teacher being sacked and the student expelled.  
  
Now, I couldn't care less if a student and a teacher had a relationship. I mean, as long as they're happy, right? It's not like the world is gonna come to an end because of a little age difference, is it?  
  
The school board seemed to think otherwise however and strangely enough, so did my conservative parents. They started discussing sending me to another school.  
  
I didn't like the idea at first. All my beautiful flock of admirers, what would happen to them? But I eventually realized that this could work in my favor. If my new school was far enough away... I would have the excuse I was looking for. Besides, I could get a new flock of adoring girls at the new school. No problem.  
  
So I started my campaign. I found a school a bit further outside the city that had a good enough reputation to reassure the ol' parental units but not so prestigious as to exclude my obvious lack of academic talent. I subtly started mentioning little worries and concerns about hectic inner city life to my parents. I told them that I was distracted, that I couldn't concentrate, that it was too noisy.  
  
"What a pity," I mentioned one night over dinner, "that we have to live so close to dad's work. It would be much nicer if we could live out in the suburbs where it's more calm. Even the schools are better out there."  
  
That was all that was needed. I had planted the idea and over the next few days it cropped up more and more in my parents conversation. It wasn't long before they broached their ideas with me.  
  
"We're thinking about enrolling you in a school a bit further away." Mum said one night. "I'm sure you must find it hard to study here with all the noise and pollution. What do you think, honey?"  
  
"That's a great idea!" I replied straight away and started telling them all about the school I had heard about.  
  
They were a little hesitant at first. I think what I was suggesting was a little further away than they had planned. It would make commuting a bit difficult, they said.  
  
This was the big moment.  
  
"What if I boarded somewhere closer?" I said.  
  
"Well..." They looked at me silently.  
  
"I've gotta learn sometime, right?" I went on. "For college.. I mean. Why not start now and get in some practice?"  
  
My mother was obviously chewing it and not liking it. My father looked aloof and disapproving. They weren't going to let me. I just knew it.  
  
"We'll think about it, ok dear?" Mum told me.  
  
Great. Just great. That was parent language for "No, but we won't tell you that. We'll just wait and hope you forget about it."  
  
I had to do something. If I left it alone now then they would just put me off again and again with similar sentiments. They would put it down to a momentary childish whim. I had to keep going, keep pushing, keep insisting.  
  
'No!' said a little voice inside. 'I won't, I can't. He'll just wear me down like he always does. He'll give me all the heartlessly logical reasons why I shouldn't, the cold calculated list of problems and dangers like he always does. I can't.'  
  
I shoved it away quickly, refusing to be put off. I couldn't abandon this last road. I had nowhere else run to.  
  
"No" I said. "I'm going. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think. I want to go."  
  
"Silence!" My father who hadn't said a word up till now started in on me.  
  
"Don't be stupid Hideaki. How can you live by yourself? You're much too young. What makes you think you could do this by yourself? You know nothing about living on your own."  
  
"Why not! What's wrong with it?" I shouted back, suppressing the voice inside me that was screaming at me to back down.  
  
"Where should I start?" Father replied in his calm and maddening way. "You don't have a job, you can't cook, you can't clean, you don't even know how to wash your own clothes!"  
  
"So... I'll learn!" I returned furiously.  
  
Back and forth it went for hours, both of us shouting at each other, refusing to back down. It seemed that all the anger that had accumulated over the last few years came out now. The topic itself became almost meaningless, anger providing enough reason on its own for the antagonism.  
  
I was determined to outlast him however. I had backed everything on this. It was my one chance to be free and I couldn't, literally couldn't, let it go.  
  
Eventually he made the mistake I was hoping for.  
  
"Fine!" My father shouted. "Go and do it then. Go and prove me wrong if you are so clever!"  
  
"But, dear.." Mum interrupted.  
  
"No." said dad fiercely. "If he thinks he needs it so badly then let him try. He'll understand soon enough."  
  
He gave her a look that promptly shut her up. "Go do it then" He repeated, glaring at me.  
  
He was the ultimate father figure personified in that moment, silently telling me how wrong I was and how right he was by this sudden contemptuous dare. 'I KNOW you can't do it, you're just too stupid to realize it, but you'll learn.' he seemed to say. 'I'm never wrong. That's why I'm your father. You'll never be right.'  
  
"I will." I stated quietly, trying desperately to put as much conviction into my words as he had. "I will."  
  
* * *  
  
Fortunately they didn't abandon me completely. I had left myself far more open than I should have in my anger. I had no money of my own. I couldn't really afford to live by myself.  
  
Dad gave me a strange sort of beneficial contempt. Within a couple days he announced that he had gotten me an apartment close to the school and I could leave whenever I wanted to. He could even call the movers over on the weekend if I liked.  
  
He was daring me again, provoking me. He seemed to smirk while arranging all this, as if he knew I couldn't do any of this by myself, as if he was giving me these handicaps because he pitied my stupidity.  
  
"Sure, the weekend is fine" I said, not saying anymore than that because I had a feeling that he might be right.  
  
* * *  
  
The weekend came faster than I was ready for but I somehow kept my resolve.  
  
My father withdrew me from one school and enrolled me in another, paid for my apartment and called the movers to truck my stuff to my new home. Everything was perfectly civil. We were trapped in this colossal dare now, my father arranging and paying for it all, even giving me a larger allowance, because he felt he had to keep up the perfect parental model and also to seemingly give himself a bigger space to say 'I told you so! Even with all the help I gave you, you still couldn't do it" when I failed.  
  
I kept myself sounding overly confident and cheerful, trying to say 'Well, I don't really need it but thanks for the help. I'll prove you wrong, don't worry about that.'  
  
I knew I was wrong about that, knew I was just as helpless at the moment as he said I was, but I also knew I couldn't admit it to him. I had to keep playing his game till the end. I found I was just as trapped in his dare as he was.  
  
But that didn't matter. It had all worked out the way I wanted it to. I had moved home and school. I had taken the last step. I would be just as popular at this new school. I could stop having to be strong when I wasn't. I would gather a new flock of girls to hide under. I could be weak again. I could be me.  
  
Yeah... just another day in the life of the one and only Asaba Hideaki. No problem.  
  
End Chapter Two  
  
Well folks, that seems to be the prologue part of the story out of the way. The next chapter will go back to Maho and explore the events of her life just before the beginning of the series. Thanks for reading and of course let me know what you think.  
  
Cheshire Grin 


	3. That volatile sickness

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction  
  
By Cheshire Grin - wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com  
  
Disclaimer: [ If I happened to be lucky enough to actually own KKNJ, which I don't, then there would be a lot more of Maho and Asaba in it. More of Tsubasa too. She's soo cute!]  
  
Here's the third installment in this series.  
  
Chapter 3 - That volatile sickness  
  
I looked in my mirror for the fourth time that morning, liking what I saw. I looked tough and confident with just the right amount of intimidation, beauty and intelligence.  
  
It always takes me a few minutes each morning to mentally prepare myself. It's a morning ritual that's just as important to me as putting on clothes. It's kind of like dressing my mind, remembering who I am supposed to be, slipping on the customary detachment and cool attitude that I always cover myself with when I'm at school. When I forget to do it I start reverting to the shy introvert I used to be. The last time that happened I got some pretty strange stares from my friends.  
  
I tried my favorite smirk and it fit perfectly. "Check!" I muttered, not really noticing that I had spoken out loud. My layers of armor fell into place with a chink that I could almost hear. The cold demeanor I had spent years crafting crept gradually though me as if the smirk itself had produced it.  
  
All systems go. Izawa Maho was ready for another day. With a quick glance back at the mirror to double-check, I walked out my bedroom door.  
  
* * *  
  
My friends joined me on the way to school. Somewhere deep within it still amazed me that I had friends now. I began mentally cataloging the changes that had occurred within me during the past year but quickly and angrily forced myself to stop. There were too many and it did me no good to start thinking of how I used to be. That was the past. It didn't matter. I had recently resolved to put it all behind me, to forget all the trash that once cluttered my life. I was stronger now, better, more in control of my life. I didn't need to be a child anymore and if the memories of that time gave me problems. well, I didn't need them either.  
  
Reiko walked beside me, absently chatting about clothes and fashions. I tuned myself out, nodding occasionally to keep up the appearance of interest. Akemi and Mutsumi trailed behind us, giggling and whispering about some guy that Akemi thought was gorgeous. None of it made much sense so I ignored them as well.  
  
I found myself thinking of how easy it had been to walk into this circle and make it mine. How quickly they had all changed from the daring girls I had so admired so many months ago to friends who followed me with the respect usually reserved for older sisters! I was amazed at how rapidly I had changed too, finding a dominating streak inside that I had not even been aware existed. It pushed me to challenge them, to be stronger than them, to prove to both my friends and myself that I deserved their respect and attention.  
  
They responded to it all with enthusiasm. After all, I was the smart one, had always been. I could achieve exceptional grades without even trying, knew more than they did about almost everything they might care to mention. In most of the ways that mattered I was like an older sister.  
  
But more importantly, they thought I was tougher than they were. I had kicked a boy from our class between the legs when he had unthinkingly pushed me over. I didn't take any crap from anyone. Or so they thought.  
  
How wrong they had been at first, thinking that. But not anymore. Over the last few weeks I had risen to the demands of their impressions, made myself over into the way they saw me.  
  
The sudden sense of support I had felt with these friends had given me the courage I had always lacked. I had donned a newer, more powerful set of armor, discarding the old forever. Now that I had the chance, I molded a new me with the strengths I had discovered, a person who could not be pushed back into the background. One who would stand out and take charge.  
  
"Maho-chan!!!", Reiko whined from beside me. "Are you even listening to me?"  
  
"Sorry about that Reiko-chan." I murmured. "I just remembered something."  
  
"Ohh. What?" She asked as we walked through the school gates.  
  
"Nevermind. What were you saying?"  
  
"Oh yeah! Well you know those shoes that I was going to buy last week? I've thought about it and."  
  
Her voice faded into hundreds of others as we started another day of seeming endless classes.  
  
* * *  
  
School life had continued with the dreary eternity it seems to possess. I found I had gained a bit of a reputation as a punk among the other students. It flattered me in a strange way and seemed to make most of my classmates think twice about bothering me. I gradually began to feel I had mastered myself and managed to keep myself out of any other troubles for a while.  
  
By this time the class had settled into the groups of friends and such that would stay together through the rest of high school. I stuck with the group of girls I had settled with. We weren't exactly friends in the conventional sense. I still kept too much of myself closed away for it to get that far. They seemed to need a leader, it was what they saw me as. They supported me, pushed me too excel and constantly reminded me of my worth. So while they may have needed me, I needed them even more.  
  
Besides, they gave me someone to talk to. When you're a teenager that's important.  
  
Nothing major had happened over the last couple of years. I became lost in my own little world, my only real concern being keeping myself on top. I started thinking of myself more and more as an adult. My position among the class seemed to suggest that. They looked up to me; were maybe even a little frightened of me and this time I was the one who didn't need them. I was the tough one, the punk. I grew to like it. I had my little group of 'friends' and my reputation. I found that I didn't really need all that much more. Well. not much.  
  
I was asked out by a handful of boys throughout school but I refused each time and kept to myself. I didn't want a relationship with a boy, especially with any of the ones in my class. They were usually either nerds or animals and almost all of them were immature and lacked style.  
  
* * *  
  
I sat in math class, bored out of my brain. The class was revising stuff that we'd all covered weeks ago. It was just in the wake of a horrible exam that seemingly no-one had passed except for me and a few others. I wasn't surprised. The Student-Sensei wasn't much of educator. In fact, he was a total scumbag. All of the girls in the class visibly cringed when he approached. He had a nasty habit of looming over us when he handed back assignments, obviously trying to snatch a quick glimpse down our shirts.  
  
He was currently engaged in 'helping' a not-so-bright girl with her studies. I suspected the reason for his extra attention might have been the fact that her chest was a size or two bigger than the rest of the class. He broke off his ogling long enough to explain an answer to the unfortunate student. His presence wasn't helping her concentration any.  
  
"See me after class, Chisa." He ordered and moved on.  
  
"Yes Sensei." She murmured with a frightened rabbit look and lowered her head.  
  
He walked over to my desk and stopped.  
  
"You did very well, Maho-chan" he leered, resting his hand on my desk. It was uncomfortably close to my shirt.  
  
"Perhaps I should ask you to help out poor Chisa-chan. Otherwise she might never graduate from my class."  
  
Across the room Chisa blushed with shame. I might have felt flattered if this guy wasn't such a pervert, but all I could think about was the hand on my desk. I was mentally picturing him as a bug about to be stepped on. Unfortunately the idea of a drooling, perverted bug struck me as rather funny and to my chagrin, a grin appeared on my face. He grinned back at me and walked off to his desk.  
  
"That guy is sooo disgusting!" Reiko next to me noticed my smirk.  
  
"What's so funny, Maho-chan?" She whispered to me.  
  
"Not much. I was just imagining what kind of insect he was in his past lives." I replied, nodding my head toward Uchigawa-Sensei.  
  
"What did you decide?"  
  
"The drooling kind."  
  
* * *  
  
"Did you see that guy ogling Maho?"  
  
"Yeah. and Chisa too. What a perv!"  
  
"I know, it's so disgusting!"  
  
"The boys don't have a problem, he doesn't ogle them."  
  
"He probably does you know!"  
  
They all giggled. I listened to them absently. It was lunchtime and we had gathered in the shade of one of the buildings surrounding the courtyard, close to the drinking taps.  
  
I had found myself in a reflective mood today. I just couldn't seem to stop thinking about the changes of the past year. It wasn't like me. Reiko seemed to have noticed and was giving me the occasional odd glance. That girl was far too perceptive for her own good. Mutsumi was paying me slightly more attention than usual as well. Akemi of course, was her effervescent, oblivious self. That was entirely unsurprising. She couldn't keep a thought in her head for more than about three seconds if her grades depended on it, which they all too frequently did.  
  
Finally Reiko spoke.  
  
"Whats up with you today Maho? You're so quiet. You don't seem yourself. Did you fight with your parents again? Or is it. You know.that time?" She made a gesture that could have meant about anything.  
  
I shrugged and glanced around. Mutsumi and Akemi had stopped chatting, Mutsumi watching me quietly and Akemi simply looking confused.  
  
Reiko however was not about to be put off.  
  
"Well.?" She questioned.  
  
I glared at her.  
  
"It's nothing. That teacher just grossed me out a bit. I was trying to think of something nasty to put in his bento." I lied.  
  
Mutsumi giggled. "I know what you mean."  
  
She and Akemi started discussing the various merits of worms, slugs, spiders and other unpleasant things as vengeance material. Reiko didn't look entirely satisfied with my answer but before she could question me anew, we were interrupted by the appearance of yet another unwanted and eminently unsuitable suitor.  
  
Over the last few months as I grew up and. well. out, I started getting more popular with the male elements of the world. It started out mildly enough and I'm sure it was happening for a long time before I became aware of it and even longer before I realized what it meant. Small things, incongruous things. Shy second glances and the occasional slight blush from the younger boys when I spoke to them. More appraising glances from the older boys. Almost paternal smiles from the men but with something unexplainable and somehow equalizing hidden behind them. Something that was not quite adult-to-child, desire maybe but firmly repressed and held in place.  
  
It was exciting, liberating, annoying and confusing all at once. On one hand it was intensely embarrassing having males look at me, judging me, appraising me. Sometimes I felt like screaming at them, demanding them as to what gave them the right to stare at me as if I was a new display in a shop window.  
  
But on the other hand.  
  
It was exciting. I can't deny it. It made me feel like an adult, gave me a kind of worth that was difficult to describe. It was similar in a way to being smart but different as well. Another form of power, one that led to different places. A power that I wasn't quite ready for but could not help but covet and encourage anyway.  
  
Looking back on it now, I think it may have been the uncertainty of it all that made me toy with the guys who asked me for dates. Perhaps it was my lack of knowledge at the time about these kind of things that prompted me to amuse myself with these boys. I regarded the whole matter like a challenge, teasing and scorning, pushing away their attraction because although I found it intoxicating, I didn't know what to do with it.  
  
Kei was no different. Approaching like the rest and leaving the same way, despite the fact that it was his third attempt.  
  
I don't think I'll ever understand the leaning thing that guys have. They all do it, placing their elbow against a wall or pole or even another person's shoulder and leaning sideways into it, the other hand alternately brushing their hair back or resting in a pocket. It irritates me.  
  
As if to do just that, Kei approached us and assumed The Guy Lean.  
  
"Afternoon girls!" He was doing his best to appear nonchalant.  
  
"Hi." We all deadpanned, waiting for it.  
  
He seemed momentarily nonplussed but continued on. "Say Maho-san, umm. ever heard of 'YinYang'?"  
  
Tactic 1: Introduce topic of conversation and covertly, an opportunity for a date.  
  
"Well yeah. There's a big one on my favorite shirt." I tried not to laugh. He seemed to have run out of good pick-up lines.  
  
"No, no. The band. They're a local rock group. They're really cool!"  
  
Tactic 2: Consolidate topic and attempt to raise interest.  
  
"Yawn. Can't say I've heard of them, Kei." I lied. They weren't all that bad actually.  
  
"I think you'd like their music. My friend's older brother plays drums for the band."  
  
Tactic 3: Another attempt at raising interest.  
  
".." I refused to be drawn.  
  
"Well umm. you see. my friend got me some. ahh. tickets for their next gig. They're playing at the.uhh. Moonlight Club on the weekend."  
  
Tactic 4: Forge ahead blindly. Deploy bait.  
  
".." He's getting desperate now.  
  
"Iwaswonderingifyouwannacomewithmeonfridaynight!" He blurted in a rush.  
  
Tactic 5: Drop all pretexts and ask before courage disappears.  
  
Sigh. So predictable.  
  
"Well, Kei, I'm not sure. Why should I want to go to a club full of loud, sweaty rock maniacs with you, hmmm?" I challenged.  
  
"Aww. Come on Maho-san! I'm not that bad. I'm fun to hang out with. It'll be great."  
  
He sounded suspiciously like he was whining. We all laughed.  
  
"Keep up the advertising, Kei-chan. You might make a sale one day." I laughed, patting him on the shoulder and making him stumble.  
  
Hmmpf! The Guy Lean. Weak.. Like the guys themselves.  
  
We walked off to finish our lunch elsewhere, leaving him to pick up himself and his dignity.  
  
* * *  
  
The next day Uchigawa-Sensei made good on his threat. He called Chisa and I aside after class to ask me if I could tutor her a bit until exams started.  
  
"Yeah, sure." I replied, not particularly liking the idea. I wasn't about to refuse it though. He asked me because I was the best and I wasn't going to let him start thinking otherwise.  
  
I looked around at the girl. She looked nervous and hopeful. She was obviously an airhead.  
  
"Come on then." I sighed, leading her out of the classroom.  
  
We came to a halt in the hallway.  
  
"Your name's Chisa, right?"  
  
"Y-yes." She stammered. "I.. I'm sorry to.."  
  
"Very well then Chisa," I cut her off. "Meet me in the library after school tomorrow."  
  
"But that's when I.."  
  
"Is there a problem?" I glared at her. She lowered her head.  
  
"No, Sempai."  
  
"I'm not your Sempai. We're the same age. My name is Maho. Ma-ho, got it?" I said, spelling it out for her.  
  
"Y-yes M-maho-san." She said dutifully.  
  
"Good. Now hurry up or we'll be late for our next class."  
  
"I.. I.. um.. Thank you. Maho-s..san, I.. uh..." She stammered.  
  
Then she turned and bolted down the corridor.  
  
* * *  
  
Great, just great, I thought as I walked toward the courtyard to eat my lunch. What the hell do I know about tutoring someone? Especially a chest- for-brains airhead like Chisa.  
  
Still, she seemed nice enough, if a little shy. Well, maybe more than a little. The girl looked as if she was afraid of everything. Including me. That was good, I decided. It meant she would do what I told her. I wasn't exactly sure if I could help her much. In my experience it's always been practically impossible to help stupid people. The best you can usually do is to ignore them and hope they go away.  
  
I noticed Kei talking to a girl near the outside door. She was cute in a freckly, pigtailed kind of way and was looking at him in the disgustingly wide-eyed, adoring way those kind of girls always seem to have. I began to hope that this girl might give him a reason to stop bugging me. I observed that Kei looked distinctly uncomfortable. Sigh. It was probably too much to hope for anyway.  
  
He turned around and gave me an enthusiastic greeting when he noticed me. I muttered a reply as I walked past him. The pigtailed girl glared daggers at me, before turning her blinding smile back on Kei.  
  
Another potential enemy. Just wonderful.  
  
Yep. Stupid people. The best you can usually do is ignore them and hope they go away. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that like that.  
  
* * *  
  
After school, Reiko, Akemi and I stopped in at the arcade. Mutsumi had left us at the school gate, citing netball practice. To my annoyance the other two had spent the entire time it had taken to walk to the arcade trying to persuade me to get a boyfriend.  
  
"Come on Maho! You don't want everyone in the class to think you're a loner."  
  
"Yeah, besides most of the boys would just die to go out with you"  
  
"Oh shut up you guys" I growled.  
  
"Ohh stop being so grouchy Maho!" Akemi continued unfazed.  
  
"How about Kei? He seems to like you." Said Reiko.  
  
"Are you crazy?!!" I snapped, outraged before I realized she was just teasing.  
  
"I know, I know." She sniffed. "That guy is such a loser. Besides, you could way better than him."  
  
"Why bother?" I grumbled. "They're all so pathetic." This wasn't going in a direction I liked.  
  
Reiko and Akemi however seemed to take that as an excuse to start suggesting a list of possibilities that must have encompassed just about every boy in the school. They finally settled on Arima Soichirou.  
  
"He is so perfect for you, Maho-san." Reiko embellished. "Smart, handsome and really, really cool! He plays Kendo for the school."  
  
" And he's really good at it." Akemi chimed in as we entered the arcade.  
  
"Weren't you just telling me how he's rejected every girl who's ever asked him out, including you, Akemi?" I questioned wryly, slipping a coin into one of the machines.  
  
"Um... well.." She went red.  
  
"Sounds just like someone we know, right?" cracked Reiko. I shot her my Look of Doom.  
  
"Arima is about the biggest wet-end I know." I snapped. I was getting pretty irritated and they were interrupting the Sailor V game I was trying to play. "Besides, I can just imagine his idea of a date. A nice, romantic study group and mock-exam. No thanks."  
  
I was being a little unfair I guess but if I encouraged them at all. they would probably try set something up and that was something I definitely did not need. Akemi practically had matchmaker stamped on her forehead.  
  
"Okay, Okay, so not Arima then. Who else then?"  
  
Great. They weren't going to quit. I resigned myself to a long and painful afternoon.  
  
"What about that new guy, Asaba? He's soooo dreamy!"  
  
I choked and on the screen Sailor V was eaten by some kind of demonic worm. Sigh. Only the third level again. I was never going to finish this game. I gave up on Sailor V and turned to face them.  
  
"Don't even go there!" I said in my 'I will crush you' voice. "That guy is the biggest pervert in the entire school, and no doubt the biggest moron too."  
  
"And he's so gorgeous!" said Akemi, ignoring me.  
  
"Shut up, Akemi"  
  
"That long hair of his looks great."  
  
"Will you just."  
  
"And his eyes are just."  
  
"SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!"  
  
* * *  
  
As I walked home from the arcade I found myself thinking about what Akemi and Reiko had spent almost the entire afternoon trying to convince me of.  
  
Maybe I did need a boyfriend.  
  
I had been getting rather lonely lately and some part of me was doing that endlessly yearning thing for something along those lines. You know. That thing that makes you sigh after watching a tacky romance movie. The 'I wish I had' thing.  
  
I wanted affection, I discovered. A different kind from the affection I got from my friends. I wanted to love and be loved. I wanted.  
  
A boyfriend?  
  
Hmm. Maybe they were right?  
  
There was Arima of course, who was perfection itself; but he never asked me and I didn't really fancy the idea of a relationship with him anyway. In a way I can't explain, he was too perfect. He seemed much too full of good feelings and moral conscience and it irritated me in some manner. He was the kind of guy who would be shocked to find you drinking at a party or watching a movie with a few questionable scenes.  
  
I guess I wanted someone I could relax with, not someone I had to behave for.  
  
There was also Asaba Hideaki but he was no good either. He seemed to collect girls like stamps. Sure he was achingly beautiful but with a sense of complete materialism. He was always surrounded by a flock of adoring girls, which he treated as if they were his pet puppies, yet none of them seemed to mind. Like hell was I going to play stupid puppy like that for any guy.  
  
Besides, Asaba didn't seem to have a whit of sense or even a fully formed thought in his head. I didn't want a moron, not even a handsome one.  
  
* * *  
  
A long while later I would come to regret my initial impressions of both Arima Souichrou and Asaba Hideaki. It never occurred to me at that time that other people might also be living behind a persona. and because it didn't, Sometime toward the end of the year I accepted an offer from a 25- year-old dentist who sometimes shopped at the store I worked at.  
  
I wanted a mature guy, someone who had something about stability in him. Someone who was understanding and maybe a little sophisticated. However, mostly what I wanted was someone I didn't have to feel superior too. Someone I could look up to. Maybe even respect.  
  
I found what I had wanted in Takashi, and since I already thought of myself as an adult, the age difference didn't really bother me. That he was willing and he cared about me, it was enough. For a while I could even convince myself I was happy.  
  
I should have expected it. I should have known.  
  
But I didn't.  
  
As it so often seems to do as soon as you start to get a bit comfortable, fate dictated that a new, opposing element be thrown into the mix.  
  
My new relationship coincided with another major event in my life.  
  
That event was the arrival of Miyazawa Yukino.  
  
Humanity thrives on competition, or so my politics teacher once said. Maybe she's even correct.  
  
Lots of stupid and unpleasant things are unfortunately true.  
  
For example:  
  
There's no such thing as gravity. The earth just sucks.  
  
End Chapter Three  
  
Authors Note: Well... That was certainly longer than I had originally intended. It seems that this story is going to go on for a while. Still, I guess that's not such a bad thing. I'm sure you're all wondering where the romance is. Is there going to be anything between Maho and Asaba?  
  
Yes there is. This is definitely going to be a MahoxAsaba fic. Don't worry, the romance will happen some time later. I've currently got plans for at least four more chapters and ideas for a few more after that, depending on how much the romance gets drawn out. Still debating how much WAFF to put into it at the end? It's all been very dark and angsty so far.  
  
Sorry this took so long to complete. I had a few problems with trying to iron out Maho's earlier life and caught a terrific cold in the middle of it all. Sniff, Sniff.Oh the misery!  
  
Comments always welcome!  
  
Stay tuned next time for Chapter 4: 'At the calm of it all / Their shepherd never found' which will go back to Asaba's POV and include his thoughts about Arima and also the foundations of the "Merryland" ideal.  
  
Thanks again for reading. Later.  
  
Cheshire Grin wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com 


	4. At the calm of it all

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction  
  
By Cheshire Grin  
  
Disclaimer: [If I happened to be lucky enough to actually own KKNJ, I would be rich and have a pet monkey. But I have a distinct lack of monkeys; hence I own no part of KKNJ or any other cartoon for that matter, not even Pokemon.]  
  
Authors Note Part 1: I would like to thank the people who have given me reviews and feedback. It's so nice to have people who like my story! So "THANKS GUYS!!!!!!!" (^_^)  
  
Chapter 4: 'At the calm of it all.' or 'Their shepherd never found'  
  
I never thought I'd be taking out this diary again. I thought I'd finished with my self-pity last time. Sigh. I guess it came back.  
  
It ALWAYS comes back.  
  
So here I go again, writing down more of the things that I could never tell anyone. I suppose I could tell some people, close friends and the like but.. they'd never believe me. Anyways, I don't really have that many close friends. That's the problem with being carefree most of the time. Nobody believes you could be anything else.  
  
I wonder why. Is it because others aren't perceptive enough or is it because my smile is too good. Maybe it's both, I don't know. But then if I did I wouldn't have to write about it now would I?  
  
How's this for a title? "The comprehensive guide to Asaba Hideaki" written and directed by yours truly.  
  
Not very catchy, huh?  
  
I guess I'm just no good at this kind of analyzing heads thing. I can't even figure out my own. That's Miyazawa's forte. When she's not out terrifying the student populace, that is. What would it be like I wonder, to be able to see into your own mind like she seems to. To map and blockade all the little mental alleys that lead to dark things.  
  
The way she somehow managed to create a credible facade of perfection from this method still eludes me. I guess I'm jealous.  
  
No, that's wrong. I KNOW I'm jealous.  
  
I guess it must run in the family. Her youngest sister is even better at it than Miyazawa. I wonder if she knows that. I think she probably does. She's real perceptive like that.  
  
Sometimes I think about telling her about myself. I almost have sometimes, too. I always end up glossing it over, though. No matter how much I may want to open up and let her see all the mazes inside me, something in Arima's eyes always stops me.  
  
Sigh. It always comes back to Arima.  
  
Miyazawa belongs to him, that's the cold fact of it all. Getting too close to her would be crossing a line that he wouldn't allow. He'd be jealous and hurt and would push me from his sights quicker than I could say "male jealousy". I'm friends with them both by his grace only. He tolerates me, not the other way around. Perhaps both Miyazawa and myself might need him but the truth of the matter is that he only needs Miyazawa.  
  
That's the problem with us men. When there's something we like, more often than not we get possessive about it.  
  
Miyazawa Yukino belongs to Arima Soichirou and to him only. He's never let me forget that.  
  
I really can't blame him. She's quite a gal.  
  
Sigh. That's true I guess but not really what stops me. I mean, for anyone else I would simply step in and take her. Hell, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a selfish bastard sometimes. I really don't care enough about other people to bother with any kind of refined social etiquette.  
  
Stepping on people's toes happens baby, like it or not.  
  
But Arima is different. The depths to that guy are just frightening. I have little doubt of what he would do to me if I tried to take Miyazawa away from him again. I crossed that line once and I will not do so again. I don't know the exact limits to how far he will go for her and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any. I don't think it would stop with him throwing me into a wall. Maybe he would even kill if he were pushed far enough.  
  
I think he would.  
  
But I sure as hell don't ever want to find out for sure.  
  
So that's how the matter stands. Yukino might be able to help me figure myself out but not with Arima watching over her. And he will never leave.  
  
Ever.  
  
I know that now.  
  
Maybe I could ask Kano, Yukino's sister but ... Hey! Even I have standards. I mean, Geez. She can't be more than 12 or so. Besides, Their old man is sooo weird. He'd probably kill me. Mr. Miyazawa is even scarier when he's mad than his daughter is. That's no mean feat.  
  
Ahhh! The fathers of the world seem to universally despite me.  
  
Still, How can I blame them? Nothing is more precious than their cute little girls. Who should know better than me, right?  
  
So here I am telling my problems to my diary again. How miserable!  
  
And how exhausting! Last time I wrote something in here my poor hand almost fell off at the end of it. It took almost three days to recover!  
  
Still, I'll take a cramped hand over Arima's wrath any day.  
  
ANY day.  
  
* * *  
  
Everything was just perfect when I started at my new school. I had quickly learned how to take care of my self and it wasn't that hard. Self-grooming always came like second nature to me.  
  
I had moved away from my parents' sphere of influence and I felt freer than I ever had before. The preferences of the young female population here seemed not the slightest bit different from my previous school. In a matter of weeks I had gathered a new fan club without even seeming to try, even bigger than my last one.  
  
Well, what can I say? There just wasn't as much competition out here. The school was smaller than what I was used to and the standards were a bit lower than the glamorous inner city I had grown up in. I didn't mind though. I wasn't after make-up or trendy hairdos. I just wanted to feel loved and there were more than enough girls who were willing to fulfill that need.  
  
Ahh! My precious flock, my lovely little sheep! I had but to call and they would come.  
  
Of course, it helps to be good-looking.  
  
* * *  
  
I had discovered my insecurity early on in life. It isn't very difficult to notice that everyone else is markedly different from yourself. Once in a fit of morbidity I looked the word up in a dictionary. The answer it gave me was disturbingly clear:  
  
Insecurity: n. weakness; lack of self-confidence; liability; having no solidarity.  
  
It may as well have had my picture next to it.  
  
But having a label for that part of myself didn't change anything. I wasn't about to go running off to the nearest psychologist and start whining about how the world was so mean and stuff. Like that would help! I just did what I always do when I run up against something that might present a problem. Accept it and find a way around.  
  
Doesn't that make perfect sense? Sure it does. That's just the way I am. Calm. That's as good a word as any I guess. It's what I strive for. Getting hyped up and angry over stuff is always too tiring. I'm a firm believer in peace. That's what it's about, baby. Be cool, use the force, and stuff like that. Find your center and keep calm. Why go around beating life for offensiveness? Just accept it and live with it.  
  
So that's what I did. I found that being loved filled the gaps. I discovered that if I plastered a smile on my face every morning, I could usually convince it to stay. Most importantly I found the value of being surrounded by other people.  
  
I chose girls. It seemed pretty self-evident to me. They all seemed to love me and want to be around me. It felt natural. It seemed a lot nicer than hanging around with the guys. I mean; not that I'm saying men are stupid or anything, Kami-sama, I am one, but hanging out with other guys just wasn't comfortable. They were all into sweaty, exhausting things like sports and fighting and stuff like that. It cramped my style. I really couldn't be bothered with arm-wrestling for some weird kind of superiority. I was never any good at arm-wrestling anyway.  
  
So I surrounded my self with a flock of pretty and admiring girls. Asaba Hideaki: Master shepherd, that's me. I was a shepherd floating in an ocean of smiling, gorgeous sheep. That was my center, the source of my calm. It was a warm wave that I floated on. Amidst my flock I never had a problem staying cool.  
  
But like all shepherds I wanted more. I was like a pride thing. I mean, isn't that how you tell how good a shepherd is, by the size of his flock?  
  
So I came up with the brilliant idea of "Merryland."  
  
Ok, so maybe it wasn't that brilliant. I can make a few mistakes right? Besides, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  
  
That last sentence alone should be officially recognized as an omen of doom.  
  
* * *  
  
'Asaba's Merryland.' A peaceful paradise filled with beautiful young nymphettes, a world where all the boring and painful trials in life were banished by a sea of adoration. All directed at me, of course.  
  
There was only one problem.  
  
I couldn't do it alone. I was good, you see but not that good. This was no little production baby, Oh no! I wanted it on an epic scale. I wanted a huge empire, a flock that was so enormous that it blotted out all the harsh realities of life.  
  
You see, my insecurities had a real nasty habit of growing when I was alone and finding my center became more difficult. I felt that if I could bury myself deeper and deeper in this security blanket of mine, I could block them out entirely.  
  
Some really smart guy once said that you could move the world if you had a long enough lever. That made sense I thought. Nothing was impossible, you could even move the whole world if you wanted to. You just needed a big enough stick. And the bigger the better, right? Why shouldn't it work the same way with shepherds and their flocks?  
  
Yet like I said, I couldn't do it alone. I needed a partner. It was a simple factor of multiplication. Now math has never been my strong point but this seemed straightforward enough. Most guys have at most about two women interested in them at one time. My present flock numbered about forty so therefore I had the attraction power of about twenty guys. Simple, huh!  
  
Ok, so if I found another guy like me then I could drastically change the total. Combining forces always has a greater total output than two separate entities working alone. Again, a factor of multiplication. Me with my power equivalent to twenty men and another with presumably the same power multiplied together (twenty times twenty) comes to a total of FOUR HUNDRED!  
  
The calculator proves it. A partner. That was the key. I decided to keep a look out for someone suitable.  
  
Now, from the start of my education I had decided to keep a low profile where anything academic was concerned. I wasn't about to start kidding myself that I was a scholar. I knew what I wanted in life and school grades had little part in it. I was a social kind of guy so I kept myself from the academic circles.  
  
That's probably why I didn't notice Arima Soichirou sooner. I just wasn't looking in the right places. However the fates decided to be kind to me one day while I was fishing around in my locker for the Groove magazine I had bought a few days before. A guy down the hall from me had dropped a letter and I spotted a big red heart stuck to the back it. That kind of letter is pretty obvious. I hid behind the open door of my locker and watched through the cracks.  
  
"Sigh, not again!" the guy said.  
  
Again? Seems this guy was pretty popular. I took another look at him. Yep, he was good looking alright in a clean-cut kinda way. Maybe not as beautiful as me but I could see most of my little sheep going for him. When he left, I walked over to his locker and took a quick glimpse at the nametag.  
  
Arima Soichirou, huh?  
  
This might be the one. I figured I'd scope him out a bit.  
  
* * *  
  
"That's four this week!" I muttered. Not bad. That's almost as many as I got.  
  
I had been surreptitiously keeping a watch on Arima over the past fortnight. He was indeed a popular guy. In fact he was getting almost as many love letters in his locker as I was. My hopes soared.  
  
Maybe, just maybe he could be the perfect partner that I'd been seeking. I followed him at a distance as he walked outside. It was the start of lunchtime and I was hopeful that he was heading off to meet one of the writers of this week's quotient of letters.  
  
Ahh. He's heading for the Sakura grove over the river. Looks like I'm not going to be disappointed.  
  
I settled down to eat my lunch in a likely spot opposite the trees on this side of the river. It afforded a pretty good view and sure enough I noticed a girl waiting next to one of the Cherry trees. A pretty damned good- looking girl too!  
  
I watched silently as Arima appeared and the girl approached him. I couldn't hear anything from here but from their body language I could guess at the conversation. The girl stepped forward to greet him and after a shy glance up at his face, she lowered her head.  
  
"Did you get my letter, Arima-kun?" I guessed.  
  
He nodded. Looks like I was right.  
  
The girl looked up hopefully. Arima scratched the back of his head nervously.  
  
Then he mumbled something and the girls face fell.  
  
Oho! He's rejected her I thought.  
  
Arima said something else, which I guessed must have been an apology of some sort, bowed briefly to the girl and started to leave. The nameless girl raised her hand a bit and looked like she was about to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it. She slumped a bit and sat down against one of the trees as Arima walked out of view.  
  
I leaned back on the grass and laughed. 'He's perfect.' I decided.  
  
The next day I decided to start cultivating a friendship with Arima. Better to begin slowly I figured. No harm in being a bit cautious, right? I wanted to be 100% certain. I mean; this is my life's ambition that we're talking about here.  
  
That's when my plans met a bit of a hurdle that I hadn't expected. This hurdle even had a name. Yukino.  
  
* * *  
  
Miyazawa Yukino. What can I say about her?  
  
She's easily the strangest, most annoying girl I've ever met. Probably the scariest too. Yet there's something about her that makes you admire her. Despite her temper, stubbornness, colossal ego and a tendency to unexpectedly and instantly change moods every few minutes, she's undeniably one of the smartest people I've ever met. She's headstrong, determined and carries an aura of perfection that can leave you breathless.  
  
Unfortunately, she's also the most vengeful person I'm ever likely to meet.  
  
Of course I didn't know all this until much later. That's a big pity where my Merryland ideal was concerned. Back then she seemed to me to be pretty much like what she seemed to everyone else. A nice polite overachiever who was a little hung up on Arima. If I could get her out of the scene then Arima was mine.  
  
I didn't think she'd put up much of a fight.  
  
Boy, was I wrong.  
  
* * *  
  
Well, my Merryland ideal came tumbling down, just like the proverbial London Bridge. Why do great ideas always seem so stupid in hindsight?  
  
I had known that as soon as I started to hang about with Arima on a frequent basis, I would get a reaction from his would-be Girlfriend. It happened just like I predicted. She started looking all confused and hurt. I figured that after one shot she'd crumple and go running back to the comfort of her studies or something.  
  
So as I passed her in the hallway I stopped to give her my opinion of the famous Miyazawa Yukino. It wasn't very nice, I know but some things just have to be sacrificed. It really was a pity, I thought. She was kinda cute.  
  
My blatant appraisal shut her up in a big way. I smirked and continued down the hall. Piece of cake.  
  
Toward the end of the hallway I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. Yep, even from that distance I could feel her glare. I caught I quick glimpse of her face as I turned around the corner. She looked furious and really, really scary.  
  
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea!  
  
For nearly a week she and I waged a war that is still famous today among the other students. But despite the fact that I had instigated this conflict, I found myself not ready for it. The amount of resistance she had put up was all out of proportion to her reputation at the time.  
  
It might have kept going for quite some time, even though I was now clearly outgunned, until Arima himself decided to step in.  
  
I was leaning against the stairwell busy congratulating myself over a particularly good shot at Miyazawa when he appeared. Well, maybe that's the wrong word. He threw me into the wall almost before I noticed him there. This was not good!  
  
"What did you say to Miyazawa?" He glared at me, Shinsengumi style. He looked pissed off. He didn't look anything like the guy I had been ingratiating myself to over the last few weeks. I was too shocked at his sudden change to speak.  
  
"I've known for a long time that you wanted to use me. It's not being arrogant but the number of people who wanted to use me has been countless until now."  
  
Oh, just wonderful. He knew. Had known all along it seemed.  
  
"However, I would never forgive anyone who dares to harm her." Arima threatened.  
  
This was not going my way. I needed to say something.  
  
"Seems like you care about her then." I snapped at him, forcing myself into the breach. "Can you tell me what's so great about her?"  
  
"You already know don't you? She's the person who'll stay with me, even when I have nothing she could use."  
  
That was it. It was over now. Yeah, I knew. He had practically slapped me in the face with the answer. Arima Soichirou was not all what he seemed, just like Miyazawa. I had been defeated from the beginning.  
  
How typical!  
  
You see, I had realized that there were depths to Arima that I had never expected. There was something lurking behind that perfect exterior I had been watching for weeks, something unstable and maybe a little dangerous. Whether or not he could be the partner I wanted didn't matter. The fact was that he was not going to be, and he wasn't going to put up with me trying to engineer it. He was not as perfect as he looked.  
  
It got me thinking.  
  
* * *  
  
I met up with Miyazawa at the mall on the weekend. I had gleaned from her earlier that she had a date with Arima today. He hadn't shown up yet. She looked as if she had been waiting a while.  
  
Well, I needed to make peace with both of them and now seemed like as good a time as any. I sighed inwardly. I had decided to scrap the Merryland plan and I really didn't want any continuing hostilities. I wasn't about the keep fighting a war I had already lost. I figured that I'd make with an apology and try to smooth things over with a bit of the ol' charm.  
  
I sauntered over and said "Hi."  
  
She exploded. I have that effect on chicks.  
  
She ranted at me for about five minutes and then started crying. This was not good. She was drawing a crowd. Very not good. Time to do something or I'm gonna be lynched by the angry mob that had gathered. I gave her my handkerchief and my apology. When she accepted it I explained things a bit, added in another apology for good measure and after a while she calmed down and the crowd dispersed.  
  
Whew! That was close!  
  
Out of the academic limelight she seemed a lot more human and not so bad after all. I said as much to her. Well, if Arima had become so possessive over her then she must have some redeeming qualities. I was just beginning to realize what they were. I smile and she smiled back. Maybe we could be on friendly terms from now on?  
  
She seemed to welcome the idea. A weird kind of comradeship seemed to appear between us. Finally things were starting to improve. Of course, that's when Arima arrived.  
  
Oh man! I thought. This is sooo not fair! I just got out of the red zone. This could blow up in my face again pretty quickly if I wasn't careful.  
  
Luckily for me, Arima seemed far too concerned with apologizing for his late appearance to even notice my presence. I glanced at Miyazawa. She didn't look particularly happy and I did not want to get caught in the middle of a lovers quarrel.  
  
Maybe I could do her a favor. Besides, I still owed Arima for yesterday. I grinned. This would be fun!  
  
Ok, time to act. Before he noticed me, I grabbed Arima and jerked him over a conveniently close railing.  
  
"APOLOGIZE!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Where is your dignity as a man, a gentleman? Letting a girl wait for you like this."  
  
I had caught him completely unawares and he was helpless. It felt very satisfactory. "YOU MUST DIE FOR YOUR INDESCRETION!" I shouted, really getting into my act. "IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN TRULY APOLOGIZE!" This was great!  
  
As I had counted on, Miyazawa recovered from her initial shock and came to his rescue, ordering me to let him go. I did so with a show of anger. Arima sat down, out of breath.  
  
Well, time to make a move before he realizes what just happened and thrashes me.  
  
"Ok then, see you!" I said brightly and began to walk off. I risked a glance at Miyazawa, wondering if she knew what I had just done for her. The look in her eyes told me she did.  
  
Well, you win some and you lose some.  
  
* * *  
  
Things were seemingly on a civil level again. I'm still not certain why I didn't go back to my crowd of adoring sheep. Something about Arima and Miyazawa made me want to stay. Mostly, I think it was the newly revealed side of Arima. There was something about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Something that made me want to get to know him better, that drew me to him. Much later I realized what it was.  
  
He was just like my father.  
  
* * *  
  
Over the next few months we got to know each other better and things settled into a somewhat comfortable beat. I watched the interactions between my new friends. There were many obvious problems with their relationship and quite a few not so obvious ones, but these problems were gradually being eroded and smoothed over by mutual effort.  
  
Arima's jealous nature became even more apparent and I found myself fading into the background of their romance. I was forced to keep a clearly defined distance from them when they were together, while Arima's eyes kept watch like a hawk. Sometimes I felt like I was fading away altogether. Yet I couldn't make myself let go.  
  
Somewhere along the line I noticed the deep feelings that existed between them and the effect they were having. It became increasing prominent over the semester break. I discovered that I was intensely envious of Arima. I coveted those bonds, despite the fact that I didn't understand them. I had never felt anything like this before with any of the girls I had ever met. I was beginning to understand things about life that I really didn't want to.  
  
Over time problems came and went and the Arima-Miyazawa romance thrived as if to spite it all. I felt myself getting pushed further and further into the background of it all, my role in their lives needing less and less of an appearance each day.  
  
I tried to find my center and couldn't, even on the days when I WAS surrounded by my beautiful flock. My calm seemed to evaporate and putting on my smile in the morning became increasingly difficult.  
  
I was falling to pieces and I couldn't stop it. With every step I was worried that I might just walk right off the earth itself. I started to hide myself away at Arima's house, trying to escape the encroaching desolation. My antics became more and more filled with a desperation that I was barely in control of.  
  
I was losing my flock, or maybe more accurately I was running from them.  
  
But sometimes the fates are kind to you when you least expect it. At the brink of self-destruction, running from a world that was becoming disturbingly unfamiliar, I ran into something that would eventually pull me from my despair and bring a new type of calm into my life. Something I had entirely discounted but was destined to replace my disintegrating center of calm.  
  
Although I wouldn't realize that until sometime later.  
  
Quite literally I ran right into Izawa Maho.  
  
End Chaper Four  
  
Authors Note Part 2: Well, this should mark the end of the single character POV per chapter that has existed thus far. From the next chapter onwards I will be bringing the characters closer to each other.  
  
Have you noticed that the chapters are getting consecutively longer? I've tried to keep them at a manageable size and not include too much plot rehashing. BTW: I know the stairwell confrontation scene is from the manga but I like it so much better.  
  
This one came to me really quickly. Writing as Asaba always does. I hope it's not too OOC. I know you are all waiting for the romance part and I promise I'll get to it soon.  
  
Once again, thanks for your support. Keep reading and giving me your comments! (or even better, a monkey)  
  
Thanks all for reading!  
  
Later.  
  
Cheshire Grin Wheresmyspoons@Yahoo.com  
  
Stay tuned for 'Chapter 5: My heart's lonely trenches' where the characters shall meet. Coming soon. 'Hopefully!' 


	5. My heart's lonely trenches

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction  
  
By Cheshire Grin wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com  
  
Disclaimer: [If I happened to be lucky enough to actually own KKNJ, I would be rich and have a pet monkey. But I have a distinct lack of monkeys; hence I own no part of KKNJ or any other cartoon for that matter, not even Pokemon.]  
  
Warning: Angsty teenage stuff. Don't read it if you've never been a teenager. Ohh! The poor, poor characters!  
  
Author's Note: This chapter is long. The beginning deals exclusively with Maho but later on the characters do meet as promised. Don't expect too much romance. The foundations are still being built. In the later parts of this story, [square brackets] indicate Asaba's thoughts and {curly brackets} denote Maho's.  
  
Chapter 5 - My heart's lonely trenches  
  
Oh, how I hated her!  
  
The coming of the New Year had brought a change in classes and witnessed the arrival of Miyazawa Yukino from class B into my class. It wasn't a welcome change.  
  
Miyazawa Yukino. As far as I was concerned she was evil incarnate.  
  
The problem was, you see, that she was perfect. She was beautiful, smart, polite and respected. Perfection really was the only word. She destroyed me from the start and she wasn't even aware of it.  
  
Perfection. I don't really have anything against it. After all, I had spent years achieving what I had come to think of as academic perfection. But when someone like Miyazawa Yukino came along and completely and utterly upstaged me. Well, I didn't deal with it very well. When you're on the top, being suddenly dropped like an inferior product is devastating. I found that I wasn't quite as good as I liked to think.  
  
It all started on the first day back at school. I remember walking into the classroom and glancing at the sheet of paper stuck to the wall near the blackboard. It was something I did every year. This particular paper contained the names of the students and their grades from the previous year in numerical order.  
  
I gave it my usual cursory glance, knowing that I would be number one on the list, of course, but liking the reassurance of that fact anyway.  
  
Something was wrong. I gave it a second, more detailed look.  
  
Why was I not on the list? I must be in the wrong classroom. No, this was the right room. The office must have made a mistake.  
  
Confused, I gave it a third and fatal examination.  
  
I was on the list.  
  
But I wasn't first.  
  
It hadn't really occurred to me to look anywhere below number one. I was always number one. 'Not anymore!' a traitorous and unwelcome voice in my head stated. I stared at the paper for a long time.  
  
"Please sit down, Izawa-san." The teacher brought me back to my senses.  
  
I sat down feeling angry and vaguely embarrassed.  
  
"Good morning class." The teacher continued. "I'm sure you've all seen the list of last year's results by now and you know the routine, so I'd like to ask this years class representative to step forward and introduce herself."  
  
Standard school routine meant that the class rep was chosen as the highest scoring student from the previous year. Until now, that had always been me.  
  
A girl with hair that was an unusual shade of red stepped forward.  
  
"Good morning class. My name is Miyazawa Yukino." She said brightly. "I'm honored to be your class representative this year. Please feel free to ask me if you need help with anything. Thank you very much."  
  
The girl bowed and sat down.  
  
This was..was.. I couldn't think of the appropriate word.  
  
A few minutes later it came to me.  
  
Intolerable. This was intolerable.  
  
* * *  
  
Pretty soon Miyazawa became the word on everyone's lips. It was all I seemed to hear any more. Class gossip seemed to concentrate on her and on not much else. Miyazawa this and Miyazawa that. It became downright depressing. Eventually I stopped listening. It all boiled down to the same thing anyway: 'Miyazawa-san is so wonderful! Blah, blah, blah.'  
  
It wasn't just that. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about me. Miyazawa superseded me in just about everything. It became a routine embarrassment. Whenever anyone in the class required advice about something, from Math to P.E. to relationships, they asked Miyazawa. And unfortunately, they had good reason to.  
  
She could and had beaten me at everything. There seemed to be nothing that I could do that she could not do better. Whether it be sport, math, history, language or even home economics, no matter what, it would be her name that was behind the top score. Despite whatever amount of effort I poured into my studies, the result was the same. I was second best and there was nothing I could do about it.  
  
It was depressing, degrading and embarrassing all at the same time. It was like I wasn't there. Poor old Maho had faded into the background once again.  
  
* * *  
  
Later in the week I talked to Chisa. I had been tutoring her for almost half a year now and had I begun to like her after a fashion and considered her to be somewhat of a friend. We had met several times over the holiday break but I hadn't really seen her much recently.  
  
I caught up with her during lunch break. She was eating her lunch with the latest in a series of drooling, single-minded boyfriends.  
  
"Oh, Hi Maho-Sempai." She chirruped, waving me over. She had persevered with the title, regardless of my continual protestations and the fact that we were the same age. To be truthful, I actually kind of liked it.  
  
After the usual meaningless trivialities, I casually brought up tutoring.  
  
"By the way Chisa, when do want to start meeting up again?" I asked. I wasn't expecting the answer she gave me.  
  
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that." She said. "I asked Miyazawa- Sempai to tutor me this year."  
  
Sigh. Of course. Why not? She takes my grades and my reputation; she may as well take my tutoring job as well. Great. Just great. I mean, It's not like I actually relished the idea of having to tutor Chisa. It was a pride thing. Tutoring was a responsibility that I didn't really want but, Damn it! I hated losing it to HER.  
  
That cold, robot BITCH! How dare she!!!  
  
Still, I had to keep up appearances.  
  
"Oh I see. No problem then." I said. "I guess I'll see you later Chisa."  
  
"Ok. Bye bye, Maho-san!" She called as I walked off.  
  
Maho-san?  
  
This sucked.  
  
* * *  
  
Miyazawa's popularity and influence just kept growing. I found myself watching her continually. In a dark and morbid way, she fascinated me. She was like me but better. It was like looking at a model of myself that had been refined and refined, almost until all the soul had disappeared and there was only robotic perfection left.  
  
For me, knowing what it was like to simulate flawlessness, I couldn't help but be vaguely repulsed by Miyazawa. She gave me the creeps; there was no way around it. How could this girl be real? Imagine if I had become like that!  
  
Suddenly, I didn't want to be me at all.  
  
* * *  
  
I felt myself slipping further into despair with each passing day. School was a monotony of depression and I put less and less effort into it. It didn't matter anyway. I wasn't going to be able to get my position back since there was no way I could beat Miyazawa at her own game. I think at that point I had probably given up entirely.  
  
That changed however, when she started getting closer to Arima. I was good at watching people, you see, have always been. It comes as a byproduct of being smart, lonely and unsure in social situations. So, while no one else noticed the changes that occurred within her, I did.  
  
When people are around a person they like, all their worries and insecurities come pouring out through the cracks in their personality. This always makes it much easier to see what and where those cracks are. When Miyazawa became enamored of Arima Soichirou, I discovered that I could see much more of what she really was under the surface. I was a mask, a façade. Underneath it all she was human. She wasn't perfect after all.  
  
I'll always remember my first thought when I realized the truth about Miyazawa. It was: How does she manage it? I knew how heavy that mask was and hers was far more comprehensive that mine. How did she carry it?  
  
She was just tough and stubborn I decided. It didn't matter. She was human and I knew now where the chinks in her armor were. She could be beaten. I decided to give it a try. I was long since time for me to get my own back.  
  
But some things will always be better than you. Life is a battle that always ends in defeat. The challenge is really only about how long you can last. I don't think it's meant to be easy. Fate decrees it and somehow always knows where to throw a stone when you are the most vulnerable. Some things are just more impossible to dislodge than mountains.  
  
I should have known that Miyazawa Yukino was one of those things.  
  
Of course I didn't find that out until it was all over and it didn't matter anymore. Then I felt stupid. However, I don't think I could have changed the outcome even if I had known.  
  
I once said that it is practically impossible to help stupid people.  
  
The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe I really am stupid.  
  
* * *  
  
During this time, Takashi became somewhat of a fixation in my life. I hadn't been seeing him long but I had begun to rely on him more and more. The time I spent with him became an escape from my collapsing reputation at school. He was in a different world than me, he had long forgotten the worries of his school years and being with him allowed me into that world. The amount of time I could spend with him was brief however, and often eclipsed by my misery at school. Yet during those few times, I was able to feel happy for a short amount of time. I didn't realize how precious that time would soon become.  
  
My failed standoff with Miyazawa culminated with a drastic change in my relationship with Takashi. I had convinced the girls in my class that Miyazawa was using both Arima and Asaba as a platform for her ego. I painted a vivid picture of her as a cold and calculating snob to the class, insinuating that she had ensnared the hearts of the two most popular boys for no other reason than to complement her elite appearance.  
  
Since just about all the girls had a crush on either or both Arima and Asaba, and because Miyazawa wasn't really known well by any of them, my ploy worked perfectly. Before long every girl in the class was ignoring her.  
  
I felt ecstatic that my plan had worked. Finally. Finally she was the one on the outside, the one for whom nothing she could do was good enough. Finally she was herself in the position she had forced me into. It was perfect.  
  
Yet, even after all the things I had learned from her arrival into my class, I kept forgetting the single most important one.  
  
Her version of perfect was far superior to mine.  
  
It was all my fault really. When it comes down to it, I can't really deny that. I got careless. I took one step further than I should have and at that instant she tipped the scales. That's the problem with having a bit of power over people. You're never really sure how much you have.  
  
The alienation of the class didn't seem to faze her much. She just went and made friends with the Class D girls. I hadn't expected that. But worse, she made friends with Tsubaki's group. That was bad. Tsubaki was both tough and mean and I was in no hurry to earn her ire. Tsubaki Sakura probably wouldn't have a problem with thrashing me if she made up her mind too. At this very moment, Miyazawa was more than likely busy trying to convince her to do just that.  
  
I was no match for Tsubaki in a physical contest. I was losing ground and I needed to make it up quick.  
  
That's when I came up with the brilliant idea of attacking in person. I had counted on the safety of the class. Tsubaki would be safely occupied in her own class in another building. Miyazawa wouldn't be in any position to say much with the whole class supporting me. Unlike her, I had earned their respect over a period of years.  
  
Sigh. I keep underestimating that girl. Kami-sama I'm stupid. I forgot that wounded dogs WILL bite and I would never have even remotely suspected how much bite Miyazawa Yukino had in her. She promptly admitted to all my accusations and the calmly threw them all back at me. Before I knew it the class had seen my little manipulative game for what it was and alienated me instead.  
  
That was the day I lost my friends. I didn't bother with trying to dredge up any excuses. They wouldn't have done me any good anyway. I told the truth. The class had practically exiled me. If they stayed around it would pass onto them.  
  
Classroom mobs aren't pretty.  
  
They disappeared quickly and without any fuss.  
  
Once they had left I walked to the window and looked out.  
  
Sigh. Reiko. Mutsumi. Akemi. They had at least been a little kind to me. They didn't deserve to be brought down too.  
  
Still, after I saw what Miyazawa did to Tsubasa Shibahime a few days later I counted myself lucky. Thank god I didn't make her THAT angry!  
  
* * *  
  
When school ended that day, so did my makeshift job of accepting my fate. As I walked into my bedroom my mask slipped and everything came tumbling out.  
  
It was over. Everything was over. As of today I had lost it all. The years of respect, the perfect reputation, my social position at school, everything. My classmates all hated me now. Even my friends had left me. Sure, I had told them that it would be in their interest to do so but that didn't make it any better.  
  
I had been utterly defeated in every way possible. Miyazawa had pierced me to the core and I could almost feel the gaping hole that existed in my armor. For about three hours I did something that I hadn't done in three entire years.  
  
I cried.  
  
It didn't make me feel any better. In fact it probably only made things worse. The time and self-absorption involved in crying simply served to increase the growing loneliness I was feeling to an unbearable extent. I needed someone, anyone to be with.  
  
I didn't have anyone left except Takashi so I went to him.  
  
I arrived at his house at 9PM crying and feeling lost to the core. I asked him if I could stay the night. He took me in his arms and said I could.  
  
Much later that night he undressed me and gave me as much as he could of himself without me having to ask. I was glad because otherwise I was afraid I might have begged. At that moment I needed desperately to feel needed and loved. For a brief time I found both in his arms.  
  
So I lost myself in the pain of that first time because it was so much more bearable than the pain in my soul, and I took what little comfort I could from our union because I had no other.  
  
* * *  
  
I had arrived at the train station early that morning. I really didn't feel like being alone right then and even the oblivious crowds at the train station were better than my empty apartment. I had been feeling lonely and transparent lately and nothing I could do seemed to make things any better.  
  
'The shepherd has lost his sheep.' I thought darkly. 'Or maybe he never really had any in the first place.'  
  
Was I deluding myself all along? Did I ever really have any control over my life? Had I been gathering my flock of pretty girls or had I been cowering under them in terror, shrinking from reality as if it were a roaring lion about to eat me whole.  
  
No not a lion, I thought. A father.  
  
I shook my head. This was not right. Why was I thinking like this? Asaba Hideaki should not be thinking these things.  
  
But I was. I couldn't shake myself out of it. For maybe the first time in my life, I could not find my center. Somewhere along the line my calm had simply evaporated like a puddle in the sun, and I was left feeling lost and incomplete. I felt like I was about to suddenly explode but I couldn't isolate the source of this feeling. I was restless and anxious and finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything.  
  
My eyes kept jumping from the people around me to my shoes and then back again. I was getting paranoid. What were they saying? Were they talking about me? My face was burning.  
  
Finally in desperation I half walked, half ran to the public bathroom. There I grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser, soaked it in cold water from the tap and placed it on my forehead. I stood against the dirty brick wall and wondered what had happed to the old me.  
  
The old Asaba, where has he gone? Where was the confidence and sense of peace I had once felt? Where did it disappear to.  
  
Did I lose it? Was it stolen? I didn't know.  
  
Why didn't my flock give me comfort anymore? Why was I always hiding from them? Was I afraid of something?  
  
Of them?  
  
The answers didn't come. I was jolted out of my thoughts by a message over the loudspeaker.  
  
"Train 227 bound for Hokuei High school arriving on platform 8. I repeat, Train 227 bound for."  
  
Oh SHIT! My train. I bolted from the public washroom in a flurry and raced up the ramp toward the platform, barely managing to dodge members of the crowd as I flung myself past them.  
  
A strange thought passed through my head. Why was I getting so worked up over this? It was just a train. This wasn't like me at all.  
  
I hesitated for a brief second, which proved my undoing. I faltered and before I could stop myself I plunged headlong into a dark-haired girl walking in the same direction, knocking us into a heap on the floor and upsetting a number of other commuters.  
  
* * *  
  
[Oww! Oh man, now I'm in trouble.]  
  
{What the %$^#!}  
  
[Aww crap! It's a girl. Man, I hope she's not hurt. Better help her up.]  
  
"I'm so sorry miss. Are you Ok? Terribly sorry. You're not hurt are you? I didn't mean.."  
  
[My babbling stopped as looked up at me. Her eyes. They were so.. .. .. Sad. She probably thought I was a real jerk.]  
  
{Ohhh, My head. Why am I on the floor? Memories came rushing back. A guy knocked me over. I looked up at him. He was currently still leaning over me and babbling apologies in my ear. He looked kinda familiar. A sudden rush of anger brought me back to my senses.}  
  
"Would you get off me please!"  
  
"Oh, right! Sorry."  
  
[Oh shit. We were still sprawled on the floor. I hurriedly stood up and helped the girl to her feet. She glared at me. It suddenly dawned on me that I knew this girl. Uh oh! Izawa Maho. She was that tough punk from Class A. I'm dead!]  
  
"Train 227 bound for Hokuei High school on platform 8 is about to depart. Passengers please keep.."  
  
[Crap!! The train.]  
  
{Asaba. I should have known. Before I could finish my thoughts I found myself caught up by him and propelled toward the train I had meant to catch. We entered in an ungraceful rush and I hurriedly disengaged myself. That..That bastard. How dare he.}  
  
{Well, at least I won't be late. Small comfort there. Maybe I should just give up on school altogether. I just don't care anymore.}  
  
[I leant against the door of the train as it took off, sucking in breath. Maho went and took a seat at the far end of the carriage, ignoring me. I took another deep breath and followed her.]  
  
{Wonderful, I thought wryly. He's gonna hang around. This is the last thing I need at the moment. Another gloating presence. Asaba sat down next to me and offered a sheepish grin.}  
  
"Sorry about that Maho-san."  
  
"Hmmpf. No problem."  
  
{I turned my head away from him, hoping he'd go away.}  
  
[She was angry. My natural instincts chipped in and I started talking, trying to cheer her up a bit with a goofy smile and my usual antics.]  
  
"So Maho-san, sorry about that rushed entry and all, but hey, after knocking you down getting you on the train is the least I can do, right? Oh, by the way did you.."  
  
{What's with this guy? Can't he shut up? He was grinning at me cheerfully while he talked. It was vaguely irritating. Still, he seemed harmless enough, and he did keep apologizing for knocking me over.}  
  
"..hear the latest Yinyang song. Check it out, they're playing over the loudspeaker. Maybe I should start singing? What do you think? I could bleach my hair and.."  
  
[It didn't seem to be working. Maho was ignoring all my idle chatter and keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. What was wrong with me? Why wasn't my charm working on this girl? Had it deserted me too? I watched her absently while I babbled. She was kind of beautiful and remote. She seemed to give off an aura of disdain. I found myself admiring her and remembering all the things I had heard about her from Yukino. Izawa Maho. Tough, determined, confident. As I looked at her a rouge thought popped into my head.]  
  
[I wish..I wish I could be like her.]  
  
{He had stopped talking and was watching me. His eyes moved away when I looked up. All of a sudden he seemed different from the picture I had made of him in my mind. Asaba Hideaki. He was gazing out the window with a far away look. His arm rested on the window ledge and a ghost of a smile remained on his lips. I found myself admiring him. He seemed so cheerful and carefree. He looked like he didn't have a worry in the world. For a brief amount of time I was envious}  
  
{I wish..I wish I could be like him}  
  
{My thoughts evaporated as we neared a station. Sansuka-cho. Huh?}  
  
{We were on the wrong train.}  
  
* * *  
  
We had decided after catching the wrong train that it wasn't worth making our way back. School would just have to wait for another day. I guess I must have got turned around when I crashed into Maho and pushed us onto the train departing from the opposite platform.  
  
Well, Everything else seemed to be going wrong. At least life was consistent.  
  
The train we were on was bound for the city so we stayed on it. Might as well make trip out of it. Maho's anger seemed to have dissipated a bit but she didn't say much. She didn't seem bothered much by missing school. I wondered if something was wrong. I hoped that she didn't hate me too much.  
  
I figured I'd make it up to her by buying her lunch so when we got off the train I shepherded her toward a line of shops, looking for a restaurant. I had felt too distracted that morning to bother with breakfast so by now I was famished. I found a place that served Chinese and we made our way inside.  
  
* * *  
  
I didn't have the strength to argue with him so I let him lead me into the restaurant and buy me lunch. I had left Takashi's place early to make my way to school, not bothering with breakfast so by now I was hungrier than I had realized.  
  
The world had slipped and I was seeing things in a decidedly unreal slant. I marveled at the surreality of it all. Asaba Hideaki was leading me around like a lost kitten and I seemed to have lost the ability to make decisions for myself. All my strength had disappeared during sometime this morning and I felt strangely incorporeal.  
  
A series of strange thoughts were buzzing back and forth in my head like angry hornets and I could only sit and watch them helplessly.  
  
Last night I had slept with Takashi. It was.. .. strange. I couldn't decide whether it was good or bad. Something in me had been changed by that event and I wasn't sure what it was. I wasn't even sure what I was.  
  
Was I an adult for real now? What did that mean? Memories and experiences kept crowding back in my head and they all seemed somehow pathetic. My entire life looked like a badly written play and my responses to everything seemed stupid and immature. I felt dangerously buoyant. I felt like I might just float right off the world altogether.  
  
I shrank away from it all. Was this what being an adult meant? Would life always be like this from now on? Would I spend the rest of it lonely and terrified of making the wrong choices again?  
  
* * *  
  
Maho looked distracted throughout lunch. However she must have been as famished as I was because together we got though about four dishes and several side orders.  
  
Sigh. This was really hurting my wallet.  
  
I tried a number of times to initiate a conversation but nothing worked until I absently started telling her about Miyazawa.  
  
"Huh? What?" She jerked in her seat and her attention snapped back into place.  
  
Aha! Finally, a response. "Oh, do you know her?" I asked.  
  
"Unfortunately, yes." Came the dry reply.  
  
"That bad huh?" Miyazawa had quite an effect on people. I gave Maho a sideways look but she didn't elaborate.  
  
"She's not really that bad once you get to know her." I continued, inwardly cringing at how lame that sounded. "Except she does kinda hog Arima for herself."  
  
Well, what can I say? I still remembered that photo.  
  
"Hmmmpf. You don't seem to have any trouble keeping a little group of puppy girls for yourself. What makes you any different?" Maho remarked. She wasn't impressed.  
  
Oww! That stung.  
  
"Not puppies. Sheep." I corrected.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Well, it's not really like that. You see, I.."  
  
And suddenly I found myself telling her everything. It all came out, all my problems, my insecurities, everything. She didn't comment but just sat and listened. About halfway through my little spiel I started questioning what I was doing.  
  
Why was I telling her this? I couldn't seem to stop myself. Something about this girl was different. She didn't seem the least bit impressed by my good looks and I felt the need to justify myself in her eyes. But I wasn't even doing that, I realized. I was simply blurting out all the pain I had kept hidden for so long.  
  
I guess I needed to tell someone and Maho with her quiet and forceful demeanor just seemed right. She wasn't going to be impressed with any of my lame excuses or influenced but the factors that distracted everyone else. Maybe..just maybe..  
  
I think I must have hoping that she'd tell me I was wrong. That she would perhaps slap me and say how stupid I was. Maybe she would take charge like a general and point out all the things I was doing wrong, give me all the answers I needed and push me back from the edge that I was dangling from.  
  
But she didn't.  
  
She just sat and listened with a strange look in her eyes.  
  
* * *  
  
What was this? Asaba too? Was everybody hiding away under a mask? Was the world nothing but a huge masquerade ball with everyone needing to cover himself or herself with a disguise against reality?  
  
If that was so, I wondered, how did people ever find each other?  
  
"I..I know what you mean." I spoke before I could stop myself.  
  
What? Why did I say that?  
  
"Sometimes I feel like.."  
  
What was wrong with me? Why was I telling this to him of all people? But then hadn't he just showed me that he wasn't what I thought he had been? Even so, should I confide in him? I hardly know him?  
  
The words came out before I could decide, and in response to his openness I threw down my barriers and showed him everything. I didn't care anymore. I was past the point of being able to be hurt any more than I already was. My mind was full of so much hurt and anger that if I didn't let it go then I would be washed away.  
  
It all came out in a flood, and I was barely conscious of what I was saying. I'm sure the restaurant staff must have been shocked but I didn't notice.  
  
I don't know how much I told him. But it was enough. At some time while I was talking I had started crying again. I thought he would he laugh, make fun of me or even be angry. I was wrong.  
  
Asaba Hideaki simply looked at me with a tear running down his own cheek. "You too, huh?" He said.  
  
I collapsed crying against his shoulder and the world evaporated in a haze of relief.  
  
I wasn't the only one.  
  
* * *  
  
Ever since then we had a kind of kinship. There was no big romance scene or anything. This was real life not Romeo and Juliet, but on the day I carried Izawa Maho from the restaurant and boarded a homebound train I felt that I had for the first time in my life made a real friend.  
  
Nevertheless, as school finished and the summer holidays began, I found that she was occupying more and more of my thoughts. She had inexplicably made friends with Yukino and her gang so I saw her often during the semester break. For some reason I found myself eager to be near her.  
  
I don't know why but from then on I always felt a great deal more relaxed when she was around.  
  
* * *  
  
The next day back at school I had felt lonely again. I was nervous and unsure of myself, and I felt confused about what had happened the day before. I didn't know what to think about Asaba.  
  
Since the entire class was still ignoring me, I had taken to staring out the window during the breaks between classes.  
  
That was when Miyazawa Yukino approached me.  
  
At that moment I was feeling hurt, anxious and confused all at once. I lashed out before I could think better of it.  
  
"You look like you feel sorry for me. If you dare do that I'll slap you silly!" I snapped.  
  
She gave me a smirk.  
  
"I do feel sorry for you."  
  
What? How dare she!  
  
"You were sloppy. If I had carried out that plan I would have done it perfectly." She continued with an ingratiating smile.  
  
In a haze of anger I grabbed her cheek.  
  
"YOU MAKE ME SO MAD!" I shouted.  
  
But to my surprise she didn't attempt to remove my offending hand. She grinned as best she could and gave me a look that might have been hopeful.  
  
That was when I understood. She wasn't mocking me. She was mocking herself. She had no bad feelings about me; she didn't want to hurt me. She was just sad that it had ended the way it did.  
  
Looking at her with my hand still attached to her cheek and realizing these things, something about the whole business struck me as sublimely funny.  
  
Before I could help it I had burst out laughing.  
  
With a look of relief, Miyazawa Yukino followed.  
  
In the last week of the semester, it looked as though I had made two unlikely friends.  
  
Life really was weird.  
  
End Chapter 5  
  
Authors Note: Whew.. that was exhausting. Well, there you have it, folks. Another chapter finished. Don't worry. This story isn't done yet. There will still be about three more chapters I think. I'm beginning to worry about dying of exhaustion before I finish this. Some of the scenes can be sooo draining to write. Oh well, it's all for a good cause.  
  
Well, that's all for now. I'm gonna go listen to Yume no Naka e. There's a certain genius to that song. After all the angst, you need something calm and relaxing. Why don't you go listen to it too?  
  
As always, please let me know what you think and thanks for reading.  
  
Stay tuned next time for Chapter six: My soul's shattered dreams.  
  
Later.  
  
Cheshire Grin Wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com 


	6. My soul's shattered dreams

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction  
  
By Cheshire Grin  
  
Disclaimer: [I don't own Kare kano. Tsuda Masami and other people do. Damn, I'm jealous.]  
  
She is not easy, She is not peaceful;  
She pulses like a heart on my hill.  
The moon snags in her intricate nervous system.  
I am excited, seeing it there.  
It is like something she has caught for me.  
  
The night is a blue pool; she is very still.  
At the center she is still, very still with wisdom.  
The moon is let go, like a dead thing.  
Now she herself is darkening  
Into a dark world I cannot see at all.  
----Sylvia Plath, fragment  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
Chapter 6 - My soul's shattered dreams  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
"Yo Asapin."  
  
Yukino called me over to where she and Arima were lounging on a bench outside the mall. Arima glared at me as I wandered over. Just to spite him I flung my arms around his neck and nuzzled his cheek.   
  
"ARIMA!!!"  
  
"HEY! CUT IT OUT!" He yelled, disgusted.  
  
Yukino looked daggers at me. They were both mad at me already. Not a bad start to the morning.  
  
"Sigh. Arima is soooo boring." I teased with a show of hurt pride. He ignored me.   
  
"Hentai." Yukino poked me. I looked offended. "Hey, it's guy stuff. You wouldn't understand." I said, throwing my arm back around Arima's neck for emphasis.  
  
He gave me a dry look. "Neither would you. Since when were you a man?"  
  
For Arima, guy stuff meant as minimal physical contact as possible. Sigh. So conservative for someone so young! How tragic.  
  
"OHO, I'm the manliest guy I know!" I smirked, flipping open my shirt and stroking my manly chest. I wiggled my hips and struck a sexy pose to prove the point. The maniacal grin pasted all over my face only served to enhance the effect.  
  
They both gaped. Really! I mean you'd think they would be used to it by now. Guess some folks just can't be helped.   
  
"Umm, Asapin.." Yukino muttered with her hand over her mouth. "you're uh.. fly is undone."  
  
Oops. That wasn't meant to happen. Oh well, I zipped up my flares and decided to take it in stride. I sidled up and nudged her.   
  
"Trust you to notice, Yu-ki-no - chan." I husked in her ear. She blushed from ear to ear and started stammering.  
  
Aha! Hideaki scores. The undefeatable Miyazawa was struck speechless. It was priceless. Arima, however wasn't impressed. He smacked me on the head and put his arm around Yukino possessively.  
  
"Baka." He said and gave me his 'Look of Doom.'  
  
I didn't miss the warning. Went a little too far that time. For the most part Arima put up with my nonsense because he knew I was just kidding but being the jealous guy he was, he would only tolerate so much. Flirting with his girlfriend was way out of line. If I weren't careful he'd give me another whacking out of Miyazawa's sight. These damned instincts of mine will get me killed one day.  
  
I sighed inwardly and my previous high spirits dropped. I hadn't forgotten the belting he gave me yesterday for offering to take Yukino swimming in the holidays. The cheek where he hit me still stung. That had been a warning too.   
  
That was why we were here anyway. In about an hour, Arima would meet up with the Kendo club at the train station and head off for the National competitions in Tokyo. There to spend the better part of the holidays working up a sweat hitting other guys with sticks. I just love kendo.  
  
"Hey guys, I'm gonna go check out the CD's."   
  
I decided I'd better leave them alone for a bit to get in a last bit of gooshy romantic stuff before Arima hit the road. Yukino had been getting that big-eyed, clingy look. I think she might have been a bit anxious about not seeing her precious Arima for over a month.   
  
"Besides, all the other babes will get jealous if I only hang around with you two." I smirked over my shoulder, pasting a lecherous look on my face.   
  
Arima flashed me a grateful look as I sauntered off into the mall and out of view.  
  
I wandered around the music shops for a while, absently browsing the CD collections. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular. Mostly I just wanted give the two lovebirds outside some time alone. A new album by Angel Tai caught my eye and I asked the shop guy if I could listen to it.  
  
About half an hour later I noticed Arima standing outside the shop. I bought the CD I had been listening to and walked over. Miyazawa wasn't with him.   
  
"She's gone to get some drinks." He responded to my raised eyebrows. He looked serious. Maybe he was going to give me that whacking after all.  
  
"Look man, you know I wasn't serious before." I apologized. "I was just being me. No offence man."  
  
Arima unconsciously registered a grimace before sighing. "I know.. sometimes I just can't help it"  
  
"You're going to kill yourself with all that worry. She can take care of herself, you know."  
  
"Yeah.. I guess so. It's just that I don't know what I'd do if.."  
  
"If what? If she ran off with another guy?" I interrupted before he could get too far with the self-pity kick. "It's not gonna happen, man. When are you going to realize that? She loves you, she's not just going to go jump in the sack with the nearest pervert, trust me. And while you're at it, trust her a bit too, Ok?"  
  
"I..Ok."  
  
"Good boy." I cracked. "You'll be a real man before you know it."  
  
Arima blushed.   
  
"Uh.. yesterday I.. uh.. well.. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry." He was stammering and looking down. He looked nervous. I decided now wasn't the time to crack jokes.  
  
"Don't worry about it." I said.  
  
"Um, Yesterday you.. uh.. said something about looking out for Miyazawa and I.. well I was wondering.. If you wouldn't mind.. that is.."  
  
So that's what this was about. In actual fact I had boldly declared that I would single-handedly keep all aspiring creeps from bothering his girlfriend. I hadn't expected him to take me up on my offer. Sigh; there goes the trust, in one ear and out the other.  
  
But then, it was one thing to tell him that Mizazawa could take care of herself (more than likely embedding any aspiring weirdo into a nearby patch of concrete) and quite another to make him believe it.   
  
"Why are you asking me?" I questioned.   
  
He looked away. "I guess I know that.. you.. and her.. wouldn't.. I mean.. I know you're only teasing and.." He looked up at me again. "I know you aren't really as big a playboy as you let on."  
  
So he did know.   
  
These moments of vulnerability in Arima, this was what our friendship was built on. This was what kept me wanting to be around him, to be there for him. That he would show these parts of himself to a guy like me, things that he would never let anyone else know about. In these moments he showed me his soul and I treasured them more than anything else.   
  
I smiled at him and put my hand on his shoulder, becoming serious for a moment.  
  
"Don't worry about it. She'll be there for you when you come back. No one will touch her, I promise."  
  
He smiled back weakly and then leaned his head on my shoulder, suddenly no more than a frightened child. I patted his back, trying to give him as much strength as I could. I was worried for my friend. Without Miyazawa around, he often seemed a different person. I hoped he could last a month without her.   
  
He looked up, looking lost and tired and terrified.   
  
"I promise." I repeated, not letting my worries show.  
  
Relief showed briefly in his eyes and his head fell once more onto my shoulder. His reply was barely audible.  
  
"T-Thank you."  
  
***  
  
After Arima disappeared for the summer, life got a bit lonely. I hadn't really been aware of how much I had relied on him for companionship. It kind of shocked me when I thought about it. I found it pretty weird that he had taken such a large place in my life.   
  
The first few weeks I spent a little time with Yukino and her friends. Had to keep up my promise after all. Couldn't have any weirdo's trying to pick up the precious Miyazawa. Of course, the most assistance I was likely to give if that happened was picking up their pieces. Not that I told Arima, but I was more worried about keeping his girlfriend from manslaughter charges than I was about anything else. Have to save innocent weirdoes from themselves. Well, themselves and an angry Miyazawa.  
  
But that's not the point. The point was that I was on a mission, not there to get to know Maho better.   
  
No, of course not.  
  
Yukino's friends were a strange bunch but surprisingly fun to hang out with. I didn't get a chance to hang out too much, Miyazawa was set on 'Girl time' for the most part, but the few times I was allowed to tag along, they each made clear impressions.  
  
The time we went to the movies was a prime example of how this group interacted. We had embarked on our mission to the theatre to check out a re-showing of 'Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.' And with Yukino in charge, that's exactly what it was. A mission.   
  
Anything not directly related to fun was quickly and effectively quashed by the all to familiar 'Miyazawa Grin' complete with a 40 story battle aura to back it up. I'll really have to learn how she does that one day! Imagine the effect a 40 story Asaba would have on the world. Talk about teen idol.   
  
Maho grumbled off to get the tickets as we entered the theatre. I wondered exactly where she fit into this group of girls. It was almost like she didn't want to even be here. We hadn't talked at all since she became friends with Yukino. I still couldn't understand how that happened. But then Maho was lonely, any fool could see that and ... well, Yukino was just Yukino. She'd talk you into anything before you could even muster a reply.  
  
I looked over at the other girls. Such a mixed bunch. Rika was busy eyeing a 'Mononoke Hime' poster and trying to convince Aya to go see it with her. Wasn't having much luck by the look of it. Aya seemed more interested in a weird foreign film called 'Bound.'   
  
Despite the arguing, they both had smiles on their faces and Aya used Rika's pleas as an excuse to throw an arm around her neck and ruffle her hair. Rika glared at her but it didn't hold any malice. She looked kinda flattered actually. Sometimes I wondered about those two. During the whole time I had known them I had never seen one without the other more than five meters away. Maybe they were..   
  
Nah. What would I know?  
  
My attention wandered around the cinema complex. It had been put up fairly recently and was nicely fitted out. There was an arcade, a row of small snack bars, a few coffee shops, a couple of gorgeous chicks, a nursery and...  
  
Whoa. A couple of gorgeous chicks. Independent of any conscious thought, the Asaba magnet whirled into action. Before I had even completed the thought I had walked over and was about to introduce myself. Elapsed Turnabout Time 1.03 seconds. Old habits die hard.  
  
They saw me approach and their eyes did a casual once over then lit up with interest. I smiled. No challenge. I should change my name to Bond.  
  
"Hey guys, what are you here to see"  
  
Huh?  
  
"Hi, I'm Tsubaki Sakura and this pervert is Asaba but you needn't worry about him." Sakura continued, giving me a slap on the back that sent me reeling and crumpled my perfect style like a sledgehammer on a meat-bun.   
  
The interest drained out the girls eyes and they turned to the newcomer. DAMMIT! She did it again. That's the third time this week. I was going to have watch out for this girl. Yukino certainly did attract the weirdoes. I walked off to nurse my wounded pride.  
  
I figured I'd have a chat with Tsubasa for a bit while we were waiting for the show to start. After all, she had spent the entire morning glaring at Aya and Sakura so I figured I'd be safe in her presence. Besides, I had been planning on talking with her anyway. Arima's psuedo-sister had been a tad distant lately and I wanted to see if she was doing ok after losing him to Miyazawa..   
  
Unfortunately, to my consternation, Yukino had taken the liberty to give her a 'don't go near that perverted Asaba' lecture and shushed me off as I approached. Damn, seems to be a going trend. I mean, come on! Am I THAT bad?  
  
I gave an outraged "Heeeeyyyyy?" but she ignored me and handed Tsubasa a wad of cash, donated by Sakura and Aya. Was it just me or did they look a bit shamefaced as they forked over? What was that about Totaros?   
  
Tsubas, giggling adorably, accepted the cash and bounced to to devour roughly seventy percent of the candy section, just as.. adorably. Judging from her appetite I guessed she couldn't be that depressed after all. Looks like I'll have to talk to her another day.  
  
It was just as well. At that moment Maho came back with the tickets, complaining that the next show didn't have enough seats left so she'd had to get tickets for the one after which didn't start till three. It was about a quarter of two now so we had just over an hour to kill.  
  
Before I could blink I was in the process of being whisked off to the nearest clothing store by Aya and Rika. Apparently they had decided that my 'designer' clothes must have been designed by Elton John and I needed a woman's touch. Can't imagine why. Never saw anything wrong with purple shirts and silver jeans myself. I said as much and withered under their combined glare. So what if it was a paisley shirt?  
  
It wasn't that I was about to start complaining though. Unless it's your mother, being fussed over isn't exactly an unpleasant experience.  
  
I looked over my shoulder as I was being dragged off by my self-appointed fashion consultants. Sakura was happily chatting with the girls from earlier and Tsubasa was still occupied with candy. Figuring they were alright by themselves, we left them there.   
  
Maho on the other hand had been collared and glared at by Yukino for being 'Not fun' and was protesting while being similarly dragged away to play the latest martial art video game at the arcade. Since she realized that Arima was actually good enough at Kendo to get into the Nationals, she'd gotten a bizarre fascination with the fighting arts. Her competitive spirit was not about to just go away it seemed.   
  
At least she hadn't decided to take karate lessons or anything like that just yet. I don't think any of us could have handled that.   
  
Their conversation drifted back.  
  
"Hey Maho, over here!"  
  
"What! Why this one?"  
  
"Don't tell me it's too hard for you?"   
  
"OF COURSE IT ISN'T!"  
  
"ALRIGHT! LETS PLAY!"  
  
".. .. .."  
  
"Wheee. DIE DIE DIE!!"  
  
"Why meeeee!"  
  
Aya, Rika and I stopped and looked at each other, trying to ignore the collective stares and dead silence that accompanied Yukino and Maho's departure.  
  
"Shameful!" voiced Rika.  
  
"Totally!" agreed Aya  
  
They suddenly noticed me again.  
  
Their eyes lit up. Ahh! The pressures of being beautiful.  
  
"Brown suede!"  
  
"Grey scarf!"  
  
"Black jeans!"  
  
"Sunglasses!"  
  
"Ohh, a beret!"  
  
We forgot about the movie totally.  
  
***  
  
I was sitting in the park near the mall waiting for Yukino and the other girls to arrive. We had decided to go out for dinner and karaoke afterwards. Yukino and Co. were late.  
  
Just my luck. Here I am twiddling my thumbs in this park while she's probably whining to Arima on the phone. She's been going on about him all summer. She said he went off to some Kendo training camp or some such.   
  
I wish she'd give the pining a rest though. It's all I hear these days. God, I hope I never get that pathetic.   
  
And what the hell was with Asaba these days? Since Arima left he's latched onto her like a limpet. Maybe he got bored and decided to tag along. I suppose he must miss Arima. They'd gotten pretty close last term. That is one weird friendship. No stranger than Yukino and mine though. She told me about the whole 'Merryland' thing. I think Asaba might have mentioned it too.   
  
Sigh. Why can't I stop thinking about that guy?  
  
He has been hanging around a lot these days. Watching over Yukino it seems. Arima must have pulled him for guard duty. What does she see in that guy? He's the most neurotic obsessive I've ever met.   
  
Still, Asaba's macho act is kinda comical. It does get on Yukino's nerves though. I wish she'd just tell him to get lost. I really don't need this right now. Not after that whole baring souls episode.   
  
Why did I tell him? I mean, Asaba Hideaki of all people. Life sure is strange. Half of the stuff I told him I haven't even mentioned to Takashi. He 'is' supposed to be my boyfriend.   
  
But then, what am I going to say. Hey honey, your girlfriend's got problems, sit down and listen up. Yeah right. It's hard enough measuring up as an adult as it is. Why did I tell her all that stuff about being in love? I feel like an idiot. Like I would know about that stuff.   
  
Why are people so strange?  
  
I used to think Asaba was a moron. Why does what he said change that?  
  
What is different about him?  
  
We haven't spoken since then. Why am I avoiding him?  
  
I was saved from becoming too morbid by Yukino's arrival.   
  
"Hey Maho!"  
  
"Oh Hi! Where are the others?" I replied.   
  
I was hoping that they would not be able to come. Despite Yukino's assurances, I never felt too comfortable among the other girls. I wasn't too sure they had forgiven me for the past. Tsubaki had just about punted me across the half the country when I first started hanging out with them. I still had bruises.  
  
"They said they'll be here soon." She exclaimed to my disappointment. "Oh and Asaba's coming along this time too."  
  
"WHAT?" I shouted before I could help it.  
  
"Don't worry, I'll make sure he behaves himself. Besides, I think he's a little lonely now that Arima's not here."  
  
"Great." I muttered. "So you inflict him on us."   
  
Ok, so I was being a little unfair. Despite him being Yukino's friend and now apparently personal watchdog, I know a lot more about him than she does. Asaba isn't such a bad guy at all. I still blush occasionally when I remember how he must have carried me onto the train after I fell asleep at the restaurant. Of course I wasn't about to tell her that. It was hard enough to deal with as it was. I don't need my new friend getting involved.  
  
Before too long the others arrived and we started heading off for dinner. Asaba had adhered himself to Yukino and was teasing her about Arima. 'I will deal with this!' I thought to myself. I sighed and trailed behind alongside Tsubasa. As I watched him walking ahead with Yukino, I tried hard not to think about how handsome and relaxed he was.   
  
I don't think I was too successful. Tsubasa kept giving me strange looks.  
  
"What are you looking at?" She teased.   
  
"Nothing!"  
  
"It wouldn't be that tight pair of jeans up ahead would it, hmm?"  
  
I sighed and handed her the chocolate bar I had been saving.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
***  
  
Karaoke was a lot of fun. I sang the theme song to the movie Titanic to everyone's obvious enjoyment. I sat down to a warm round of applause while Tsubasa burst into 'Moonlight Densetsu.'   
  
Talk was relaxed as we continued though a varied mix of songs. Rika and Aya did a duet of something by Puffy and Sakura followed them up with "Fly me to the moon."  
  
Just to spite me, Yukino sang 'Yesterday once more' by the Carpenters. Her English was much better than mine.   
  
"Show off!" I muttered with a show of hurt. When it was my turn again I unbuttoned my shirt and gave an extremely sexy version of "I'm too sexy." When I finished, I buttoned up my shirt and raised my eyebrows and at her daring her to do the same.   
  
"Your turn." I smiled sweetly.  
  
She refused to tempted. What a pity. Still if Miyazawa unbuttoned her shirt and Arima ever heard about it..  
  
Oh well, some things just aren't meant to be.  
  
"Such a good little girl!" I smirked and moved off to sit next to Maho.   
  
Ok Asaba, this is it. Time to break the ice. No more of this awkward stuff. She's a girl. No, scratch that. Sheep. Yeah. Think shepherd. Use the force.   
  
Mojo doesn't work on this girl.   
  
It'll work. Don't worry. Mojo always works.   
  
My mouth refused to form words. It obviously didn't believe a word that my brain was telling it.   
  
Maho glanced over and caught me staring.  
  
Uh oh. Better say something. I smiled at her.  
  
"Uh..could you pass the peanuts."  
  
She passed me the peanuts.  
  
I slumped. All the 007 in me died. That was not cool.  
  
Very not cool.   
  
"Oh man! Bond has deserted me."  
  
Maho gave me weird look and got up to sing "Give a reason."  
  
Oops. Didn't mean to say that out loud.  
  
***  
  
I was walking back from Yukino's place with Asaba. With customary impudence, she had enlisted him as my 'bodyguard.' It couldn't have come a worse time, I thought.   
  
Tsubaki and the other girls had left early, Sakura citing volleyball practice and Aya saying she had a column to write. Rika had gone with Aya for 'moral support' and Tsubasa had been collared by Sakura on the pretext of animals needing to be locked up at night.   
  
Yukino, Asaba and I had stayed for a few more songs, none of us really to give up for the night. Yukino was obviously still pining after Arima and kept crooning out the old love ballads while Asaba had his 'protect Yukino' mission. I had stayed because Yukino needed company for those last few songs and she said Asaba didn't count.   
  
Eventually we all got tired of singing and began to wander homeward. We arrived at Yukino's house and stopped to say our goodbyes. I was just about to take my leave when she spoke.  
  
"Hey Asapin. Be a good boy and walk Maho home."  
  
Whoa. Don't do this.  
  
"No, it's ok. It's only a few blocks away. I'll be fi.."  
  
"Don't be silly." She cut me off. "You'll do it won't you Asapin." She threw a pointed look his way.  
  
Uh oh. An order. When you're around the girl at school you quickly learn to recognize that tone of voice. She wasn't about to be gainsaid. Oh boy! Just what I needed.   
  
Asaba took it in stride. "Yes Maam!" He gave her a salute.   
  
"Baka. Now get going before I make you do push-ups." She barked, whacking him and playing along.  
  
"Yes Maam!" He gave another salute and ushered me off before she could smack him again.  
  
Yep. Just what I needed. I threw a nasty look skyward and resigned myself to my fate.  
  
***  
  
The night was warm and the cicada's gave a comforting background buzz. I wasn't feeling very relaxed though. I was.. well, what was I? Nervous. Embarrassed maybe? I wasn't even sure.   
  
There was a weird silence. Neither of us had spoken since leaving the Miyazawa place. It was like there was some barrier between us that I couldn't define. Some awkwardness.   
  
Since that last time..  
  
I didn't know what to say to him. I didn't think I ever would. Some things are never easy.  
  
I needed to break the silence. It was getting unbearable. I wanted to say something, anything, let him know that I wasn't a stupid little girl, that I didn't hate him, that I wanted him to be.. a friend. I wanted to say this and a million other things but they wouldn't come.   
  
God, what a moron he must think I am.   
  
I glanced over at him, looking for anything, a clue of something to say perhaps. Asaba was walking where he had been the whole time, a step behind to the right like he had taken his role as my bodyguard a bit too seriously. He seemed a lot paler in the moonlight. He was looking at me, had been the whole way. I wondered just what was going through his mind.   
  
"Stop looking at me like that!" I snapped, strained by the prolonged silence and his reluctance to speak.  
  
"Huh"  
  
It was almost as if..  
  
"I can't take this. What's with the staring? Do you like me; is that it? You look like you're about to kiss me. Why are you being so weird?" I blurted. "If you're going to do something then do it!"  
  
***  
  
"You look like you're going to kiss me."  
  
"If you're going to do something then do it!"  
  
What did she just say?   
  
My face blazed in shame. I realized that I had been staring at her the whole time we had been walking. She thought I wanted to kiss her? Did it look like that? Did I actually want to? Did she want me to?  
  
Questions raced through my brain but I didn't have any answers to any of them. I don't know what I wanted. What was it about this girl? Why did my confidence fall to pieces whenever I was around her? Why did I never know what to say? I barely knew her at all.  
  
But I wanted to.  
  
Did I want to kiss her? I.. I wasn't sure. I felt relaxed when I was around her, comfortable even but nervous at the same time. I felt like I didn't need to act around her, but when I wasn't acting I didn't know what to do.   
  
Was acting all I knew how to do? Was there anything behind the carefree mask I wore? Was that all I was?  
  
NO, DAMMIT!  
  
Behind the face there was..  
  
..me.  
  
I needed to prove it to her. Needed to tell her I wasn't just a pretty face, that I wasn't worthless. I wanted to let her know that I wasn't just a soulless idiot with a tan and a flashy smile.  
  
(You look like you're going to kiss me.)  
  
I didn't know what else to do.  
  
So I kissed her.  
  
***  
  
He didn't say anything for a long time. Must have freaked him out with that remark about him wanting to kiss me. Great. Just fantastic, Maho. Another conversation killer.   
  
God I'm stupid. Now he'll probably never talk to me again.   
  
I really ought to write a book. 'How to distance people: A guide to self-alienation' by Izawa Maho.   
  
Why not? Aya would be proud.   
  
I sighed inwardly. Why did I feel so exposed with this guy around? How did he make me say things without thinking? I suppose I'd better say sorry before he thinks I'm a complete idiot.  
  
I was about to apologize when he kissed me.  
  
***  
  
I leaned over and pressed my lips against hers. She didn't resist. My mind was a blur and nothing was registering except the need to let her know what I was thinking. I poured my frustrations into the kiss as if to somehow receive answers to the questions I had been unable to voice directly from her breath.   
  
The world blacked out..  
  
Her lips.. so soft.  
  
I was barely aware when she started kissing me back.  
  
And then it was there again, the connection we had shared that day in the restaurant was back and I could feel her again, could remember just who and what she was. I hadn't been aware that I was missing it.   
  
It was..  
  
..real.   
  
The real Maho. Her thoughts, feelings, wants, fears. I could taste them on her breath.   
  
I opened my eyes and caught her looking back at me.   
  
That was when the spell broke. Reality washed into my head bringing with it an awareness of what I was doing.   
  
Ummm.. Did I just do that?  
  
She stepped back, fear and uncertainty taking over her features.   
  
"I.. uh.. I.." she whisped.  
  
Then before I could say anything to repair the situation, she turned and ran.  
  
I watched vacantly as she fled around the corner and out of sight. One word sprang instantly to mind to describe the situation.  
  
"Fuck!" I said.  
  
No. That wasn't right. I walked over to the wall and kicked it. No, still not right.  
  
I slammed my head against the wall. Yeah, that was it.  
  
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUUUUUCCKKK!!!" I shouted, ramming my head into the wall each time.  
  
***  
  
He kissed me. Why did he do that? Words haunted me.  
  
'You look like you're going to kiss me?'  
  
'If you're going to do something then do it!'  
  
It was just an offhand remark. I hadn't meant for him to actually do it.  
  
Just an off the wall remark.   
  
I was hyperventilating. I could hardly breathe.  
  
Whoa! Calm down. Ok Maho, review the facts.   
  
One: I can't breathe.   
  
I've been running for about ten minutes now. It's natural. On to two.  
  
Two: Asaba kissed me.  
  
Well, guys are weird. They do weird macho stuff. Comes with the territory. Probably just a momentary thing. Besides, it was 'Asaba!' He probably does that kind of stuff all the time.  
  
Three: I kissed him back.  
  
O-k.. .. Not so easy.   
  
It doesn't matter. I didn't mean it. Got a bit caught up in the moment. It's not like it means anything. It was just a kiss. Anyway, he kissed me first. That's what you do when someone kisses you.  
  
Four: I liked it.  
  
So. Everyone likes kissing. It's not like he's ugly.   
  
ARRRGGGGGHHHHHH!  
  
I love Takashi dammit, not Asaba. Why am I kissing him?  
  
ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!  
  
Ok. Relax. Breathe in, breathe out. Cold. Ice. Soul of ice.  
  
Right.  
  
So Asaba and I kissed. Once. No big deal. It was innocent. Harmless. Spur of the moment and all that. So what if it was nice. Kissing Takashi is nice too. Kissing in general is nice.   
  
You can deal with this, Maho.  
  
Sure I can.  
  
I just need to go see Takashi. That's it. I need to see Takashi right now.   
  
Right now.  
  
I turned and headed in the direction of his house. This just wasn't my day.  
***  
  
I was running, running from everything.   
  
I remember what had caused it. It stood out in my mind like a neon sign, every nuance glowing with an obscene and somehow unnatural light.   
  
Takashi....  
  
And another.  
  
They....  
  
'NO! FORGET IT!'  
  
....in bed.  
  
'FORGET IT!'  
  
Kissing....entwined together....  
  
'IT WAS A DREAM, A MISTAKE, IT WASN'T REAL!'  
  
He was....  
  
She was....  
  
'THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!'  
  
Naked....  
  
'NO!'  
  
....together.  
  
'NO!!!!! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!'  
  
They couldn't! They wouldn't!   
  
{They did.}  
  
No! I won't believe it!  
  
{You must!}  
  
I won't!  
  
{You must! You cannot deceive yourself.}  
  
I can. It was just a mistake. It wasn't what it looked like. There's another explanation!  
  
{Like what?}   
  
He loves me!  
  
{Are you sure?}  
  
I....I....  
  
{Are you sure?}  
  
YES!!! I mean I.....of course....he uhh....  
  
{Does he really love you?}  
  
SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!!  
  
{Does he really love you?}  
  
The world was spinning, around and around me. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. It was a dream. It had to be a dream!  
  
{Then why can't you wake up?}  
  
I will. In a minute I'll wake up in my bed and it will all be just a bad dream.   
  
{Go on then}  
  
But I can't. Why can't I wake up? What's happening?!!!!!  
  
{You already know}  
  
Who are you?!!!  
  
{You know that as well}  
  
WHAT?!! I don't.... What are you talking about?   
  
{You know me very well. You created me.}  
  
No!  
  
{You did. You put me on every morning. You hide behind me.}  
  
I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!  
  
{I am your protection, your shelter}  
  
Wh-wh-w.... I....  
  
{I am you}  
  
No... You can't....  
  
{I am the mask you created, the replacement for your soul when things are too difficult.}  
  
That's crazy!  
  
{It's not. Everyone does it. Only you far more than most.}  
  
I don't believe you!  
  
{It doesn't matter}  
  
Leave me alone!!  
  
{Is that what you really want?}  
  
I....I....I don't know. I don't understand.   
  
{How can you not understand? He has betrayed you.}  
  
No! He loves me!  
  
{How can you know that?}  
  
He told me!  
  
{People lie.}  
  
He wouldn't....  
  
{Are you sure?}  
  
I....  
  
{You see! You cannot ever know what others truly feel.}  
  
But...  
  
{Others may tell you things but you cannot always believe them.}  
  
That's not....  
  
{People can deceive. They can be cruel. You have done it yourself.}  
  
NO!  
  
{You have. There have been many times.}  
  
No.... I'm not....  
  
{What about your classmates? Kei? Chisa? Reiko? Mutsumi? Akemi?}  
  
But.... But....  
  
{Asaba.}  
  
I..I didn't mean.. It was a mistake.. Just a kiss. It didn't mean anything!  
  
{What about Yukino?}  
  
No.... I....  
  
{You lied about her.}  
  
SHE DESERVED IT!!!  
  
{Did she? Truly? Do you really believe that?}  
  
I....I....  
  
{You know that's not true. She is your friend now. She is kind to you. She has always been kind to you. Even when you hated her.}  
  
I....I....I know.  
  
{You cannot blame this on others. It has been your fault all along. You have created this situation for yourself.}  
  
NO! I didn't make Takashi sleep with another woman.  
  
{But you gave him reasons to.}  
  
No.  
  
{You were cold to him. You have ignored him, yelled at him, you only seek him out when you need him. It has been so all along.}  
  
No. I was happy with him. I slept with him.  
  
{That does not make him belong to you. You only slept with him because 'you' wanted to. No one has forced you. You have taken him for granted. You have only spent time with him when 'you' wanted to. All the other times you have ignored him.}  
  
B-but....  
  
{You have been cold and careless. That is why he has sought out another.}  
  
Why me?  
  
{You have brought this on yourself.}  
  
I wish I were dead.  
  
{Are you really so weak?}  
  
I just don't know anymore.  
  
END CHAPTER 6  
  
Author's Note: Well, that's Chapter 6 done. Slumps into deckchair exhausted.  
  
But seriously, apologies it took so long. Real life has an annoying habit of intruding where it shouldn't, particularly my free time. But I'm not dead, still writing, This will be finished one day, Bwahahahaha.  
  
Be a nice reader and let me know what you think. If you already did.. Thanks! Keep it up.  
  
Next time: Chapter 7 - The Looking Glass Broken  
  
All for now folks.  
  
Later  
  
Cheshire Grin  
  
Wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com 


	7. The looking glass broken

Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou - But I Stood In The Background  
  
A KareKano Fanfiction By Cheshire Grin  
  
[Disclaimer: I don't own Kare Kano. Tsuda Masami and other people do. Get used to it.]  
  
Chapter 7: The looking glass broken.  
  
"Birds always grow silent before the night descends.  
'Cause nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend."  
~Jewel~  
  
* * *  
  
What's happening to me? I should feel something, right? Anything.  
  
Anger. Hate.  
  
Why don't I hate him?  
  
Of course the roof wasn't giving me any answers. Not that I was really expecting it to.  
  
Why don't I hate him?  
  
He cheated on me, betrayed me. I should hate him. I should be angry with him. I should feel..  
  
Something.  
  
Why do I feel nothing? Not even any tears this time. I guess I must have used them all up lately.  
  
Sigh. Who am I kidding? How can I hate him when I never really loved him in the first place? It's a wonder that I never figured it out until now.  
  
Story of my life.  
  
Stupid me, huh? Mistaking comfort for love. But then, I'm not surprised. Par for the course and all that. I wonder how long I've been stupid?  
  
How long have I locked my heart away? How long since I stopped hearing it?  
  
But most of all..  
  
How long since I forgot how to open it?  
  
I feel like I'm falling.  
  
A shell. It walks, talks, smiles but doesn't feel.  
  
All that's left of the 'real' Maho. Maybe this is what they mean by out of body experience?  
  
Last time I thought I had lost everything.  
  
Stupid me.  
  
Falling.  
  
I feel nothing.  
  
No, not true. I still feel one thing,  
  
I feel afraid.  
  
Afraid that maybe this time I won't be able to put myself back together.  
  
* * *  
  
"Hey guys! This is Tonami Takefumi. He used to attend here a few years ago, and he just transferred back. Is it okay if he eats with us?"  
  
I quit staring at the newcomer Arima was introducing and proceeded to stare at Arima himself. This was well.. weird. Since when did Arima start inviting guys to eat with us? Especially GUYS. This was new. Usually he'd never let another guy near the precious Miyazawa Yukino. I wonder if in his mind, Arima actually considered me a 'guy'? I looked back at Tonami.  
  
The guy was obviously tailor-made for playing sport. Tall, somewhat thin but sinewy and well-built. Smart too if he was the Tonami who placed equal first with the genius couple on the last grade listing. All the girls are checking him out too. I guess he's gonna be pretty popular. I snuck a few glances over at Yukino. Yep. Her too. Not too much, just an almost casual appraisal, nothing more than a sideways peak and a slight smile but it was there. Yeah, this Tonami's gonna be a hit. Just what I needed. More competition. I realized a second later that I really hadn't been competing much lately.  
  
While we all carried on with the usual antics, teasing, bickering, Yukino and I badgering and then force-feeding Arima, Tonami kept quiet, reserving his participation to the occasional incredulous glance and Yukino and myself and ones of awe at Arima. Looked kinda surprised that Arima put up with us. Well, what can I say, we're an acquired taste.  
  
It was obvious that this new guy was far more interested in Arima than his girlfriend. Maybe he idolized him in junior high or something. Kind of weird but at least he wasn't a threat. Yet.  
  
Beep. Down radar.  
  
By the time we'd finished feeding Arima his lunch, to his acute embarrassment of course, things had quieted down a bit. Tonami was still doing the 'newbie scared to speak' thing so I figured I'd do him a favor. With my best ingratiating grin pasted on my face, I leaned over and snagged the last fried shrimp from his bento and popped it into my mouth. In a matter of seconds the dumbstruck look left his face.  
  
"HEY!" he shouted, obviously nonplussed.  
  
Wow. He speaks! Wonders never cease.  
  
"Pretty good!" I mentioned with a show of noisy chewing.  
  
"Really?", questioned Yukino. "I always thought that people who played a lot of sport were terrible cooks."  
  
"Wha..?" Arima, star of the Kendo team, was indignant.  
  
"Hey, Shut up!", yelled Tonami, looking slightly shamefaced. "Besides, my sister makes it."  
  
"See, I was right!" Scoffed Yukino, helping herself to Tonami's bento. Unimpressed, he picked up his chopsticks and began defending it.  
  
"The only decent cook among us is Asaba because he doesn't play sport." She continued.  
  
Despite the truth of the statement, I found myself pondering the logic involved.  
  
"True, true," I agreed, preening, "but Arima won't eat my food. He says he doesn't like food that's cooked by a man."  
  
In an effort to demonstrate, I grabbed one of the egg-rolls I had made this morning and attempted to shove it down Arima's throat. Unsurprisingly he resisted. With a remarkably athletic wriggle he escaped and hid behind Tonami.  
  
"I can feed myself, baka!"  
  
"I guess you're right." I sighed, doing my best to look downhearted. Unseen, Yukino crept up behind him and grabbed his arms.  
  
"What? Yukino.. What are you..?"  
  
"But it's so much more fun this way!" I cried leaping forward.  
  
"No.. wait! I don't want it!"  
  
"Say 'aaaah'."  
  
"NO! Hey!!!! That tickles!"  
  
"Say 'aaaah'."  
  
"AAARRRRRRGGGGGHH.ULP!!!"  
  
"Good boy!"  
  
Miyazawa and I grinned at each other.  
  
"Violating someone is so much fun." She crowed helping Arima up and leaning her head on his shoulder as if to reassure. He put his hand behind his head and laughed sheepishly.  
  
I can only agree.  
  
Tonami just sat and gaped.  
  
Taking advantage of his confusion, Arima leaned forward and pushed lightly on Tonami's forehead.  
  
WHUMP. He fell backwards and we all laughed uproariously.  
  
Looking slightly guilty, he picked himself up. Curiously enough he wasn't complaining. Eventually he joined in with our laughter.  
  
I noticed that he was blushing.  
  
Weird.  
  
Hanging out with Arima was an exercise in social strategy. On the one hand, he needed a constant influx of praise, which coincidentally was why I figured he'd introduced this Tonami into our circle. Despite being perfect, Arima had such a lack of self-esteem that he simply needed admiration to feel worth something.  
  
Perhaps Yukino was getting past that stage? Come to think of it, something had definitely been different between those two since starting back. Well, all fine and good, enter Tonami as the new pillar of confidence.  
  
But on the other side of the fence there were a lot of pitfalls and taboo's. Better make sure the newbie is aware of them.  
  
Lunch rolled on. I don't think anyone saw me frown under my cheerful smile.  
  
* * *  
  
My room. My sanctuary. A place I can escape to. Sometimes.  
  
Not far enough though. I can still hear them arguing in the next room. About me of course.  
  
"Akiko, her grades have dropped fifty points in the last month. It's not normal!"  
  
Hmmpf. Not normal huh? Guess I can't argue with that.  
  
"I'm worried about her too Honey but what can I do? She won't even talk to me about it."  
  
What would you say if I did talk about it, Mother? What would you think?  
  
"I hardly see her anymore. As soon as she gets home from school she just shuts herself up in her room. She doesn't even invite her friends over anymore. I don't think she even does any homework these days. Something's wrong."  
  
How right you are Dad. A flash of unbidden guilt quickly shoved away. My one real friend too wrapped up in her dreams, studies and her boyfriend to notice what is happening to me. I haven't seen her outside of school in a week.  
  
Oh yeah, and my homework, lying untouched on top of my dresser.  
  
Pad, pad, pad. A brief knock on the door.  
  
"Maho-chan? Are you alright, dear?  
  
Just fine Mum. Never better.  
  
The door opens a crack. I pretend that I'm asleep. Door closes. Pad, pad, pad.  
  
The sound of my mother crying next door.  
  
I feel nothing.  
  
"It'll be okay, dear." My father trying to reassure her. "Come on, it's late. We'll talk about it in the morning."  
  
Sound of my parents getting into bed. Click. Lights being turned off.  
  
I don't know why I'm crying.  
  
Half an hour later, the sound of creaks and stifled moans. A soft grunt. Husbandly reassurance.  
  
"Akiko?" Softly.  
  
"I'm sorry dear. Maybe.. maybe tomorrow night." My mother crying again.  
  
The pillow over my head doesn't quite block it all out.  
  
I'm tired.  
  
I get up and walk over to my full-length mirror. The girl staring back at me has dark shadows under her eyes.  
  
Who are you?  
  
I feel old. Old and ugly.  
  
'It's not normal.'  
  
Ugly. Clench fist.  
  
Sudden anger. My hand pulling back sharply then plunging forward, almost an unconscious action. It stops about five inches from the mirror. What am I doing?  
  
I feel tired.  
  
Unclench fist. My fingers hurt. Still nothing. Still tired. I turn the mirror around to face the wall and bury myself under my pillow again.  
  
I can still hear my mother crying.  
  
I wonder if she can hear me?  
  
Sleep comes hours later. There are no dreams.  
  
* * *  
  
"Are you ok?"  
  
He didn't say anything. Didn't have to I guess. I sighed and was about to take another swig of my soda when he collapsed against my back. A frail shell, all strength evaporated once more.  
  
I forgot how frail he was. He weighed almost nothing.  
  
Sigh, Arima.  
  
He was quiet for a long time. I wonder just when he went and changed on me. He was never like this when I first knew him. But then, maybe he was. He just never let anyone see it. He'd been acting even stranger than usual lately though. Miyazawa had been acting odd too. I wonder if something happened between the two? Lovers spat or something. Who knows? Those two are so wound up that just about anything could set them off.  
  
"Hideaki?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"The other day I.."  
  
I kept quiet while he seemed to be searching for words. After a minute or two he went on.  
  
"The other day I.. I slept with Yukino." Quietly, gravely. Very gravely.  
  
Wow. Talk about unnecessarily dramatic. I closed my jaw and was about to say something but he didn't seem to be finished. I decided to shut up. From the tone of his voice, I guessed this was not the time to slap him on the back and bring out the sake.  
  
"Hmm." I said. Noncommittal, that's me.  
  
"It was good. I.. I really liked it. It felt.. whole."  
  
"Whole?" I echoed not quite getting it.  
  
"Yes. It made me feel wonderful, peaceful. I felt whole."  
  
"That's nice." I put in, baffled. I was still trying to figure out why he was telling me this.  
  
"We slept for a while after. Then she had to leave."  
  
O..k.. huh?  
  
"After she'd left I.. I felt terrible."  
  
"Guilty?"  
  
"No, no. I.. I realized something." He turned round to face me. " I NEED her."  
  
"You love her?" I asked almost cringing at the word.  
  
"I..I.." He was blushing furiously. "Yeah."  
  
"So, why is that bad?"  
  
"Because she doesn't need me." He grabbed my shoulders and looked right at me. "Dammit Hideaki, she doesn't need me. But I need her. I can't live with out her!"  
  
His eyes were wet and a tear rolled down his red face. I hadn't seen him this worked up in a long time, if ever. He wasn't coping.  
  
It suddenly struck me that he would never be able to cope. He would always be like this. Something deep in his past and in his makeup would never allow him to be satisfied with himself. Some wounds don't heal over. They leave a scar, something that won't go away. It's something you have to learn to live with.  
  
Whatever wound Arima had on his soul, it wasn't something he'd ever be able to forget. It was something he was going ho have to learn to live with. And learning how to do that might take a long time. I hoped for his sake that the girl he had chosen understood that.  
  
Of course these sudden realizations still gave me no idea about what to say to him.  
  
"What am I supposed to do Hideaki?" He was verging on pitiful.  
  
"You live." I told him. "Does it matter that much who likes who the most? Do you think she's going to leave you just because you need her more?"  
  
He didn't say anything. Damn. I had to get this through. I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye.  
  
"Look man, the fact is it doesn't matter. She's not going to leave, is she? So you live. You look after her and you care for her and yeah, sure you feel bad..lonely when she's not with you but you go back to her and you hold her tightly so she doesn't leave."  
  
"I.." he muttered. Oh no, I wasn't about to let him get away with any excuses this time.  
  
"Shut up and listen. How the hell do you know she doesn't need you? She likes you, I know that. Otherwise she wouldn't hang around. But she doesn't do just that does she? She's always around you, wants to be around you. Whatever crap you're thinking doesn't matter. She loves you."  
  
Oh man. That word again. Why do I have to say this?  
  
Because if you don't he'll never stop moping, my mind intoned sarcastically. Oh well, might as well finish it. I'll cringe afterwards.  
  
"She loves you. Did 'she' want to sleep with you?"  
  
"..I.. uh.. yeah."  
  
"And does she want to sleep with any other people?"  
  
"I don't.. I.."  
  
"DOES SHE?" I was shouting at him but he had to realize this.  
  
"NO!"  
  
"Well, I don't think Yukino is the shallow type, right?"  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"I doubt she'd ever sleep with anyone unless she really.. really loved them, am I right?"  
  
"I.. uh. Yeah, you're right."  
  
"So don't worry about crap like that, ok. Just have fun. Sure, when she's not around you'll get lonely, but that's all it is. She'll be back, understand?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right."  
  
Maybe huh? Well, better than not I guess. Please God. Please let me be right.  
  
"Good, well just remember to come talk to me when you get like that and I'll kick some common sense into you ok?" I said gruffly, trying to regain my cool.  
  
"Ok, sure." He replied, smiling for the first time that afternoon. I grinned back.  
  
Arima you fool. You really are a fool. Why do I do this for you? What makes me want to protect you? Aren't you supposed to be 'my' father?  
  
"Hey Hideaki?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Do you have anyone you.. really like?"  
  
Oh crap! He's not supposed to say that.  
  
"Well, I.. uh.. there's a lot of girls I like but well, not too many make me feel special. I guess I'm just waiting for someone who makes me feel special and who I can make feel the same way."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Yeah, being cryptic is the best way right now. Someone who makes me feel special huh? Yeah, maybe I've discovered that part. Someone I can make feel the same way? Well, that's the bit I'm not too sure about.  
  
Not too sure at all.  
  
I looked up at the sky and felt suddenly cold.  
  
After a while we moved to the railing to look down at the grounds. I could see Yukino and her gang eating and arguing by the river. Arima spent the rest of the break staring at his girlfriend.  
  
I didn't tell him but I spent it watching Maho.  
  
* * *  
  
Tell me how to love a heart that isn't even real,  
Show me how to kiss with lips I simply do not feel,  
If you want to know me, you must tear the flesh some more,  
Not ever, not yet but I will forget, the things I say I live for.  
  
For my own inherent greatness is made of glass,  
And it will shatter; it will never come to pass,  
Held down by something it has never known,  
Myself, my mind, the soul I do not own.  
  
Now why did I write that? How cliché. But then, all the ingredients are here. Depression, loneliness, apathy and one lost teenager. Add and stir and there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Instant bad poetry. Best served chilled.  
  
Hell, it's even raining outside. How classic can you get?  
  
Twelve years of school, with extra classes and top grades of course, and this bad poem is all I can show for it. Truly tragic, no?  
  
Such talent put to waste, as my Grandmother always used to say. She's dead now. Been like that for over a year. Not that I was much broken up over it. She never did much except drink too much tea and watch television.  
  
I never watch television. Mostly I just never had enough time between studies but even now, when I'm not working hard, I still don't bother. In- your-face advertising propaganda always tends to anger me a little.  
  
Grandma liked it though. Watched all those trashy dramas too. Yukino likes those. Guess it figures. That girl is melodramatic to a fault. Something weird has been going on with her recently. She gets this whole starry-eyed thing going whenever she looks at Arima. I wonder if she slept with him or something. But no.. that can't be it. She'd tell me if that happened. I mean, I'm her best friend, right?  
  
Sigh. Here I go again. I was writing about Grandma and wandered off. My concentration is shot to hell. I can't seem to keep a thought in my head for very long. My stomach hurts a lot too these days. And my hands.. I'm not really sure when they started shaking so much.  
  
Grandma. I was talking about Grandma.  
  
I used to argue with her all the time. I was really into coffee back then. As a student, these days especially, if you want to do well, you really need it. Well, I did anyway.  
  
Grandma didn't like it. She still had a few traditional bones in her body and there must have been a really big tea-drinking one. Coffee was simply bad news according to her. I shouldn't drink it. She even told me once that it would make my hair fall out.  
  
So we argued. Tea or coffee, which was better? A stupid thing to argue about. Sure.  
  
She could never keep up with me of course. I was the top language student back then, could out argue just about anyone. Except my family. Arguing is about logic you see. Families rarely seem to use it.  
  
I can still picture her, you know. Sitting on her chair with her twitch and her grimace, using the age-old tactics of elders everywhere.  
  
"Maho! Don't talk back, child."  
  
The last word always emphasized. Really! What can you say to that?  
  
It never really bothered me when she died. She looked so much happier at the funeral. No twitches or grimaces. Her face was relaxed. No cane in her gnarled, old hand. She looked peaceful.  
  
So yeah.. It never really shook me up at all. I pretended it did of course. To ease my parents minds and mostly just because I felt I was expected to. So I would look.. good, I suppose. Dutiful. I doubt I would have impressed anyone by remarking that the old troll looked a whole lot better dead than she did alive. At those sort of things, you are meant to cry.  
  
I didn't cry. But I pretended to.  
  
I think I'm rambling again. Doesn't matter really. I'm not even sure what I'm writing this down for. Or whom I'm writing it for.  
  
To think I always prided myself on my writing skills.  
  
To my future self, whom I hope will never read this;  
  
Are you happy?  
  
Do you.. love? Hate?  
  
Do you feel?  
  
You'll notice that this page has been torn out and taped back in. You see, I just ripped it out and threw it in my bin. I can't write for shit.  
  
But then I thought, this is a piece of my mind and I guess that after all, no matter how bad it may be, I don't really want to throw it away because sometimes I feel that there's not that much left.  
  
Nevertheless, I doubt you will ever find a reason to read this, future self. Twelve years of school and numerous essays aside, what it comes down to is that..  
  
Well.. It's that I can't write for shit.  
  
Funny. That's what everyone says I'm good at.  
  
* * *  
  
I caught up with Tonami a couple of days later in the hallway. His initial disapproval of Yukino had incited her to argument and before long the two had been at it constantly, both seeming to enjoy the conflict immensely. After he let us in on his revenge plans for Sakura and his past, he and Yukino had developed a bond. Arima's eyes had been gradually developing that dark possessiveness. After that time on the roof the other day.. I had the feeling this could blow up pretty soon.  
  
Never fear, Hideaki Powers to the rescue.  
  
I glanced around to see if Sakura was anywhere near. Due to her.. influence.. I had had to adopt a new persona. Bond simply didn't have enough mojo.  
  
Luckily for me she was playing basketball. In fact Tonami might just be watching her from the hall window. Time to find out.  
  
"What are you watching."  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Sakura's pretty damn hot, huh?"  
  
"Yeah.. I.. huh?" Tonami went red and glared at me. "It's not like that!"  
  
Alright! Scores. This is perfect. I grinned up at him.  
  
"Well then what 'were' you watching? Or should I say who?"  
  
"Shut up. What do you want?" He growled at me.  
  
"Woah.. Lighten up. Just kidding." This guy was 'way' too up tight. But.. better get down to business.  
  
"You wanna be friends with Arima, right?"  
  
"Well.. yeah. So what?"  
  
"You're too close to Miyazawa."  
  
".."  
  
"You shouldn't be acting so careless around her. You might cause unwanted things, like pushing Arima into a corner. You see, the Arima you know isn't the real Arima."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"The real Arima hates it when someone, be it a boy or a girl, gets too close to her."  
  
"Huh, Arima what..?"  
  
"He really has a very intense personality.."  
  
".."  
  
"..and a VERY strong possessive attitude."  
  
".."  
  
"The only person Arima is truly himself with is her. ONLY her. He only allows me to be near her because he knows that I will never, EVER take her away from him."  
  
"Haha.. oh..kay.. look, you're worrying too much."  
  
"I don't think I'm getting through to you. It doesn't matter if you do or don't like her or whatever. What matters is that you pay too much attention to her."  
  
"Hehe.. She's not my type, she's just a normal girl to me.."  
  
"Look, I'm not trying to be an asshole here. Please.. leave Yukino alone. You like Sakura, right? No, don't bother denying it. You know what I mean. If you wanna hang out with a girl, hang out with her. Please."  
  
"You're really serious!"  
  
"Yeah.. I am. I've been looking out for Arima for a long time now. That's why I'm asking."  
  
"So how come you can hang out with her?"  
  
"Yeah, I can hang out, sure, but think for a bit man. Whenever that happens, just 'who' is the attention always directed at?"  
  
"Yeah.. alright. Look I'm sorry if I've got in the way and all.."  
  
"Don't worry about it. Already forgotten." Time to lighten this up a bit. It had been getting far too serious for my liking.  
  
I patted his shoulder and grinned. "Of course, if you do it again I'll sign you up for the Kendo team as a practice dummy."  
  
"Ok, ok, I get the point." He grinned back and the tension eased.  
  
Crisis averted. All bow to the mighty Hideaki Powers! Bwahahahaha!  
  
"Tell you what, the two lovebirds are gonna be busy doing responsible school things tonight. Why don't you buy me a coffee and I'll enlighten you a bit about Arima and the little lady."  
  
"Hey! Why do I have to buy?" He protested scratching his head.  
  
" 'Cause you're the newbie. And while we're at it you can tell me ALL about Sakura."  
  
"WHAT?? There's nothing.."  
  
His denial wasn't exactly very convincing. Ignoring his protests I led him off to grab a coffee. This was definitely worth cultivating. I grinned an evil grin. Yeah.. a good romance is just the right thing to get Sakura off my back.  
  
Still, Tonami had better hurry up. That girl was beginning to have a serious effect on my mojo.  
  
* * *  
  
Today I saw Tsubasa at the arcade after school. Don't know why I stopped in there. Usually I just go straight home after school these days. But for some reason I stopped and she was there.  
  
We had coffee. Well, 'I' had coffee. She had some soda concoction that was bright blue. I really shouldn't be surprised. She's mostly animal after all. She told me all about Kazuma. Went on and on. She couldn't seem to shut up.  
  
It was just as well. I didn't really feel like talking.  
  
Yeah, even the animal finds love. She seems almost happy now. Ok, so she's euphoric. Happy, euphoric. It's the same thing really. She really loves Kazuma. Any fool can see that. Especially this fool.  
  
It would make a great parable or something. Beauty and the beast. The old cliché. Love heals all. How trite. I just can't bring myself to care.  
  
Love. Hmmpf.  
  
If it exists, what the hell would I know about it. I couldn't do the stuff that's expected. I'm not built like a princess. I couldn't be cute and kissy and stuff like that. I could never be helpless.  
  
You see, I don't want to be helped.  
  
Hell, I don't even know what I want. That's a good thought. What do I want? Riches? Beauty? A career? How about the old story, a loving husband and two cute kids?  
  
Funny. I can't think of a single thing.  
  
{Not ever, not yet}  
  
Maybe, just maybe..  
  
{But I will forget}  
  
Do I want to die?  
  
{The things I say I live for}  
  
Not yet. Oh God, not yet.  
  
Perhaps I should take up smoking.  
  
* * *  
  
SNAP  
  
Sigh. Looking at the closed diary in front of me, I have to wonder why I bothered writing all that down. Like any future self would actually read that crap.  
  
My parent's voices drift up. They're yelling again. They're worried about me. I wish they wouldn't worry. I wish they hadn't always loved and encouraged me. Looked after me. That way I could have blamed them. But as it is, it's not their fault that I'm unhappy.  
  
I guess it must be mine.  
  
I think I'll go for a walk now. I need to clear my head.  
  
Maybe my mother's voice won't sound so nerve-wracked when I get back.  
  
* * *  
  
"Thanks for the coffee."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"Tightass. Oh well, oughta head home."  
  
"Asaba?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Don't mention it. See you later, man."  
  
"OK, Later."  
  
Tonami's really a good guy. Even if he is all hung up over that Sakura girl. Don't know what he sees in her but he's got it bad alright. That conversation went pretty late too. It's already dark.  
  
Man, what a day! First Arima then Tonami. Am I turning into the love doctor or something? Dr. Asaba huh? I kinda like it.  
  
So Arima slept with Yukino. That fact still hadn't quite seeped in yet. It was kinda hard to believe. No doubt about it though. Arima sure as hell would never lie about that kinda stuff. Not someone as straight-laced as him. Oh no!  
  
The neurotic duo are now officially a couple. The scumbags even beat me to it. Better not let on to Yukino that she's got one up on me. Not that she'd ever suspect that I'm still a vir.. well yeah. I'd never hear the end of it. What a headache!  
  
That reminds me, I should put some Asprin in my schoolbag when I get home.  
  
To my empty home.  
  
I probably could've crashed at Arima's tonight but.. Well, even the love doctor needs his rest, right?  
  
Love doctor? Yeah right? Who am I kidding. Even a totally repressed guy like Arima had sex before I did. Hell, I bet Tonami will probably beat me to it as well. Probably Tsubasa too. Yeah, why not.  
  
Still, it's no problem! It's not like I'm desperate or anything. I mean, I could have had sex with any number of girls before now. It's not like I've never had the chance. It's just that I.. couldn't.  
  
Arima said it made him feel whole. I think I know what he meant. I always felt like I was only half a person, waiting for the other half. Waiting to be whole. I want to feel that. I want it more than anything.  
  
But I don't think I could ever let anyone see me like that. That's why I've always looked so beautiful on the outside.  
  
Because on the inside I feel ugly.  
  
Woah. Calm down man. That's enough.. Right. Yeah. Cool. Focus.  
  
Ok, so I'm lonely. I'll get over it.  
  
Walk home, eat, sleep. Don't think.  
  
Oh shit! It's started raining.  
  
Ok, RUN home, eat, sleep.  
  
No problem.  
  
* * *  
  
See! Even God hates me. Just my luck for it to start raining. Now I definitely can't go back.  
  
Well, it's not like I really want to.  
  
It's cold in here. I feel like a stupid kid. Crawling into the playground penguin slide to light up a cigarette. Still, at least it's dry. And empty.  
  
Smoking. Why do people do it? It just makes my mouth dry. I don't think I've quite got the hang of it. Despite the small cluster of butts on the ground.  
  
But I think I can understand. There's a certain kind of vicious pleasure in it. A sort of self-destruction. It feels comfortable in a way.  
  
Well, better keep at it. I've still got more than half the pack left.  
  
My fingers are shaking so much I can hardly light the damn thing.  
  
I notice that two nails are broken. So much for vanity.  
  
I feel so sick that I can't bring myself to care. Sure, I know what I'm really doing. I know I'm making myself sick on these damn things. I even know why. For something to blame of course. A reason to feel sick. But it's not working. After all, I the one stupid enough to smoke them.  
  
It's still MY fault.  
  
A steel clang. Someone is climbing the ladder. I don't care. I feel sick.  
  
A sodden shape is climbing into my haven. It gives a soft curse and crouches next to me.  
  
"Uh.. Hi." It offers.  
  
Asaba.  
  
Yep, God hates me alright.  
  
"Maho?"  
  
Oh God, leave me alone. Why can't everyone just leave me alone.  
  
SMACK.  
  
My hand? It hurts. He hit me.  
  
"Why in hell are you SMOKING?" He looks mad. He's shouting.  
  
"I..I..I'm sorry." Did I just say that. Why is he here? To laugh at me?  
  
"Look, I uh.." He suddenly looks sheepish. "I didn't mean.."  
  
"SHUT UP!" Sudden fury wells up. "JUST SHUT UP! I KNOW I'M STUPID. WHY DO YOU CARE? JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"  
  
Without even realizing it I am hitting him, over and over, shouting, punching, crying. I can't stop. He doesn't say anything, just lets me hit him.  
  
The tears blur my vision and my fist misses his shoulder and hits the wall of the penguin. Without any warning my fury suddenly departs. What was I doing?  
  
Sudden guilt. Shame. Stupidity.  
  
I feel wretched. The tears continue. Why am I so stupid? Now he'll be angry. He'll hit me back. Part of me welcomes it. Contact of any kind..  
  
God. Reality. I don't understand.  
  
Something hurts but I can't figure out where it is. Or even what's hurting. I think I've curled into a ball but I can't see for all the tears. I might be expanding or contracting, I don't really know.  
  
Oh God, I'm so scared.  
  
* * *  
  
Ok, this is not good.  
  
'No shit.' My brain agreed with me. SHUT UP! I thought back at it.  
  
Well, way to go there Asaba. The girl you fancy climbs up here to get out of the rain and you have to go smacking her around. So what if she was smoking? Yeah smoking is bad, sure, but what makes you her father.  
  
IDIOT. IDIOT. IDIOT.  
  
Yep, This is bad. Well, at least she got her own back. Man, that hurt. I'm gonna have bruises tomorrow.  
  
Oh crap. Now what do I do? It's painfully.. very painfully obvious that something is wrong with Maho and now I've gone and made it worse. Just great. What a day!  
  
Now she's crying. Way to go Moron!  
  
Ok, Focus. Think. Gotta do something.  
  
"Maho.. I..I'm sorry."  
  
No response. This is bad.  
  
Should I.. No she'd kill me. She must hate me now.  
  
But.. She hates me.. I gotta do something.. but she'll.. so what, I deserve it if she does.. C'mon she's shivering!  
  
Moving closer, I gently put my arm around her. "I'm sorry."  
  
No change, she's still crying. Did she even notice?  
  
Man, this is awkward.  
  
With a loud sob she suddenly leant into my arm. Neither of us said anything for a long time.  
  
"Is it still raining?" Softly, choking. I looked around.  
  
"Yeah, it is." I answered, beginning to feel very uncomfortable.  
  
"I.. I think I'm falling."  
  
"I know. Me too." I said finally understanding.  
  
"Don't let go." Pleading.  
  
"Sure."  
  
A long time passed. I looked like the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon. I couldn't see anything outside the penguin. Looking down at Maho, I could see that she hadn't moved at all. Still curled up into my side. I wonder what it is I'm shielding her from.  
  
Looking down again, I wonder if she can hear my heart.  
  
"I.."  
  
"Huh?" I muttered, not hearing her.  
  
"I'm afraid."  
  
"Yeah.. yeah, Me too."  
  
Silence.  
  
The rain didn't stop for what seemed like a long, long time.  
  
END CHAPTER 7  
  
Author's Note: Hahaha! I bet you all thought I was dead, huh? Go on, admit it. It's close enough. What with Uni, holidays and me just being plain old lazy (hehe, sorry!) I've been out of it for a long time.  
  
But I'm back. After watching a little series called 'Pretear' I suddenly realised that I'd forgotten all about Maho for ages. So here is. Bwahahaha! 'But I stood in the Background Chapter 7' is finished.  
  
BTW: Go and watch Pretear. It's an awesome show. Also, thanks so much for the reviews. I'm so glad someone reads this.  
  
Thanks go out to my proofreaders Paul Corrigan and Jen "Chen Yingzhen" and also to assorted support personnel, Charlie, Jett, and Tytus Mak. God, I sound almost corporate. How scary.  
  
Lastly, a great big sorry to anyone who has been waiting for this chapter. Gomen!  
  
Next time: 'Chapter 8 - By love's stifled screams'.  
  
Love and stuff,  
  
Ja,  
  
Cheshire Grin wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com 


	8. By love's stifled screams

Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou - But I stood in the background  
  
A KareKano fanfiction by Cheshire Grin  
  
[Disclaimer: I don't own Kare Kano. Tsuda Masami and other people do. Get used to it.]  
  
And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what it was you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst I think. When the secret stays locked within not for the want of a teller but for the want of an understanding ear.  
-Stephen King, Different Seasons-  
  
I'm dying, praying,  
Bleeding and screaming.  
Am I too lost to be saved?  
Am I too lost?  
-Evanescence, Tourniquet-  
  
Chapter 8: By love's stifled screams  
  
* * *  
  
Sometimes I think that the world is just a little too big for us all. It's not something I can really define very well. It's a feeling I've had for a long time now. The first time I realized it was when I was seven.  
  
There was a girl in school that I had recently begun to watch. I wasn't really sure why I started to watch her. It just happened. There was a level of interest that I didn't really understand back then. I just found myself watching her, thinking how pretty she was, feeling both sick and entirely wonderful at the time.  
  
I think perhaps that the reaction I felt to this girl scared me a little. I wasn't entirely sure what it meant. The idea that I might love her had never occurred to me. I suppose that it rarely does to seven-year-old boys.  
  
I wasn't sure what it was. Sometimes, when my father would let me stay up, we would sit outside in the summer and watch the stars. There were a few times when I was lucky enough to see a shooting star whiz though the panorama above. At those times I felt a similar feeling. Similar but.. not quite the same.  
  
Nevertheless, I didn't understand that feeling either. If I had been asked to explain it to someone back then, I doubt I would have been able to. Even now, I'm still not really sure that I could. I suppose it might be a sense of wonder.  
  
Yes. Wonder that something could be so beautiful. Something so remote and beautiful that it passed entirely out of the reach of my ability to comprehend. It made me feel.. small.  
  
Small. The same way I felt when I looked at the girl who had so occupied my attention back then. In a way it made me happy, simply because she was so lovely but in another way it also made me a little sad. Not because I felt that I could never be near this girl or anything like that. At seven the very thought of holding either a pretty girl or a falling star were equally ridiculous. I just..  
  
Even now I just can't explain it. I get the feeling that I will never be able to do so. The best I can do is to say that at both times I felt very small.  
  
Back then my parents used to fight a lot. They had been like this for several years now so I was kind of accustomed to it. Looking back I can say that they really had very little in common and perhaps they married a little too early and even rashly. It took them until I was eleven to finally grow accustomed to each other and settle into a familiar rhythm.  
  
But at age seven, their fights were another thing that seemed so big that it passed out of the range of my understanding. It seemed wrong somehow and yet I felt that it couldn't be that way. I had always thought that my parents were perfect and these fights simply must be a part of it. The thought was too big, I guess, and I didn't have it very often. As a child I could never keep my attention fixed on any one thing for a long amount of time.  
  
I'm not quite certain but I think it was around then that the enormous difference between men and women occurred to me. The strange almost alien attraction to the opposite sex. The intangible 'thing' that seemed to hang in the air between my parents sometimes, something entirely different to the anger when they were fighting.  
  
Something that seemed to bring them together almost forcibly, something that existed in the weird kisses they sometimes gave each other.  
  
I found myself thinking of the pretty girl at school, as she stood under a tree and laughed in joy at sight of all the birds flying above, and at the same time of my parents, their raised voices clashing and colliding about the kitchen. I felt something inside me begin to hurt very badly. I didn't know what to do so I sat and cried for a long time, hiding my face from the world that suddenly bared its teeth, as if to eat me whole.  
  
That was the first time I remember having this feeling, when these two foreign thoughts seemed to loom above me like malignant spirits, seeming both too large and too unnatural to exist. I felt then that the world was too big and that I was too small and my head hurt with the sudden confusion of it all. It scared me more that anything else had up to that point.  
  
Since then, that feeling has never really left me. Oh, it disappears sometimes and often won't bother me for months at a time but it always comes back, as familiar as ever. Just that one simple thought. A silly, childish notion.  
  
The world is too big, nothing more. But no other thought is needed. At once the all too familiar confusion returns and once again I feel as small as I did on that day ten years ago, as afraid as I was back then.  
  
But as frightened as I am by that, it can't compare to the other thought that sometimes comes to me at these times.  
  
Am I the only one that ever feels like this?  
  
Because, watching the other people that inhabit this world, and the ease which they relate to each other, it seems as if that may be so.  
  
How can simple reality be that frightening? How is it possible?  
  
In these times, when the world seems far too big to understand, let alone live in, I, Asaba Hideaki, seventeen years old, can only do the same thing that I did all those years ago. As shameful as it is, all I seem to be able to do is cry.  
  
Cry.. and hide my face away from the world.  
  
* * *  
  
One simple act of kindness. How can it say so much?  
  
Up until now I had never understood the stories I read or the few television programs I had seen. One in particular stands out. A television show. A cartoon. Just a silly little children's story about a young guy who ends up with five different women, from space no less, falling in love with him. Of course, the poor guy never knew what to do and ended up bumbling through each episode with most of the girls fighting each other for his affection. A silly show, sure.  
  
But then, it had never made any sense up until now. I remember watching it years ago and thinking how stupid these girls were, how foolish to all fall in love with some loser like that. I mean, sure, he was a nice guy and all, but.. he wasn't THAT good. So what if he had shown a little kindness. There are probably hundreds of guys just like that. How could these ridiculous women decide that was enough to repay with a lifetime of devotion? How is that worth fighting and waiting with the others on the offhand chance that the young man will notice these feelings, and perhaps return them?  
  
A simple act of kindness. Nothing more.  
  
I never knew just how much that could mean. How much it said. How quickly it could change your response from mild gratitude, further and further, each new kindness growing and multiplying this feeling into a kind of dependence. A gratitude that makes you want to do anything for that person, makes you depend on them, count the days till you see them again, makes your heart beat and your head cloudy whenever they are near.  
  
Stupid, I know. I sound like a freshman girl with a crush on her upperclassman. Just a silly little girl wrapped up in an unrealistic dream.  
  
But I don't feel like that. I know all too well who I am, what I am and most especially what I am not. I'm not young and innocent. I'm not heartsick or coquettish. I don't giggle and sigh and become red-faced. I'm not dreaming. I gave that up a long time ago.  
  
I am nothing more than a castaway, someone who is drowning, grasping blindly for anything to stay afloat. Clutching at straws. Begging for shelter with nothing to offer in return.  
  
How true that is. I have nothing left it seems. Nothing to justify anyone giving a damn. Poor, little Maho has returned back to a cinder girl, mourning the cruel chime of the clock that dispelled the brief dream of royalty.  
  
Nothing left. The mirror testifies.  
  
Eyes puffy and swollen from crying. The sockets bearing large dark patches, the eyes themselves are bloodshot. Hair hanging limp and dead, lips red and sore from being bitten, nails either broken or bitten down to the quick, any pretext of vanity fading like the few flakes of nail polish that remain. The school dress hangs and billows, suddenly a size too big. Just an ugly little waif of a girl.  
  
What doesn't show in the mirror is reflected in the eyes of my mother as she watches me trudge to my room and slam the door. It's written on the school reports that no longer decorate the fridge door. No more dreams of beauty and riches. Hell, I'll be lucky to even pass.  
  
Lying on my bed, tears come once more. Please God, no more. I'm so scared.  
  
A little act of kindness. Just this once, can't it be something more?  
  
Can't I just..  
  
Thinking about it doesn't matter anyway.  
  
One simple little kindness.  
  
All I have left to hope for.  
  
* * *  
  
I feel like something has changed. Something is different, not in a dramatic way or anything like that. It's neither good nor bad but just there. It's like a soft breeze, barely felt at the beginning of spring but carrying something new with it. I'm still not sure myself what exactly has changed. Maybe it's my ideals, my worldview, reality itself even, I don't know. I just know that something HAS changed.  
  
Perhaps it has to do with the way I look at her now, the way she sits next to me at lunchtime, neither of us saying anything, not needing to, just knowing what the other feels like. Perhaps it's in the way we talk, when we do talk, speaking softly as if afraid of something overhearing us. Perhaps it has to do with the way that all the other girls I used to hang out with have just seemed to fade away, like something not quite real. Not 'real' in the same sense as the girl sitting next to me. Maybe it's none of these things or all of them.  
  
I guess I just can't stop thinking about her. Over the last few days I've been wondering, contemplating things very seriously. I wonder whether I love this girl. I suppose that's a good place to start. I've never really thought about it before. Sounds strange huh? Asaba 'Powers' Hideaki not thinking about love. But it's true. I haven't thought this way before. Even when I kissed her. That was somehow a different feeling, desire, lust, confusion maybe. But not this.  
  
If I do love Maho, then love is not at all like I expected. I can't really put that expectation into words but I felt that love was some kind of ecstatically gleeful and joyous feeling. Some sort of sublime happiness, but I don't feel that way at all. Mostly I feel a strange kind of content. Yeah, I guess that's it. Content. Sitting next to her, I don't feel bored or restless or even a need to say anything. It sounds silly, sure, writing this stuff down, but I swear I've never felt more serious in my life.  
  
I feel kind of worried a lot too. I think I'm coming to understand a fair bit of what Arima goes through. I think I can understand why he threw me into a wall way back when we first met. Most of all, I can understand that dark look he gets in his eyes all too often. That jealousy, the need to protect, is settling in. I want, no.. need, to protect her, help her, take away her pain, and at the same time I feel a helplessness because I can't protect her any further than being here with her.  
  
Looking back at what I have written, it sounds as though the writer is all maudlin and gooshily romantic, but that's not true at all. That's perhaps the strangest thing about how I feel at the moment. All the amorous feelings I once felt have seem to have gone to sleep. They're still there but they just don't seem as important. When I hold her as she's crying I no longer wonder what it would be like to kiss her or whether her breasts are as soft as they look. I feel content just to have her head on my shoulder and to be able to comfort her and in a weird way I also feel grateful.  
  
She's not at all like the girl I imagined falling in love with, that is if this IS love. I feel the need to explain this. I always thought that I would end up with someone more like me, I guess. Beautiful and carefree and well dressed. Maho is really none of those things in a conventional sense. At least, not at the moment.  
  
But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because she is real. I can't really say it any better. She is in a way more real than any other girl I have ever met. Maybe because I've seen what's under her mask, or maybe because she's seen what's under mine, I don't know, but I don't feel alone anymore.  
  
I guess that's what this whole diatribe has been about really. Gearing myself up to be able to say this one, all-important thing. I no longer feel alone. That it doesn't matter if I love her, or she loves me or anything like that. That might be nice, sure, but it all pales in comparison to that one thing.  
  
And that's why I'll be with her as long as I can, why I'll seek her out and protect her if need be, help her in any way I can.  
  
Because I am no longer alone.  
  
* * *  
  
I don't know if I'll ever get used to this. I'm sure as hell I'll never understand it. Damn, I can hardly even bring myself to believe it.  
  
He's still sitting there. Sitting next to me.  
  
Not saying anything. Just there. It's.. comfortable, him just sitting there. Next to me.  
  
Just like yesterday. And the day before.  
  
In fact for a whole week he's been doing this.  
  
Seems I've drawn a lunchtime companion.  
  
It's strange. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. Am I happy? Mad? Indifferent?  
  
He's changed. Not the same as he used to be. He's very quiet now. Serious. I hardly recognize him. Oh sure, he looks the same. Outwardly at least. But that's not important. It's his eyes. Once upon a time they sparkled. Full of quixotic mischief and quick humour. They don't do that anymore. Now they're dark and brooding and they look right through you.  
  
In fact sometimes they're rather frightening. But then he smiles and it's all just my imagination. Well almost, anyway.  
  
His smile. That's changed too. It's become sad.  
  
What are we doing to each other? What have I done?  
  
I can't decide whether things are better now or worse. I'm not so alone anymore now.. but those eyes, that silence. They make me feel.. guilty. And stupid.  
  
I'm being selfish. He's just being nice and I'm making him miserable. Miserable just like me. He doesn't talk to any of his other friends now. Every time I see him he's alone. Or with me.  
  
I still remember the day before yesterday when one of the girls he used to hang around with approached us. She was very polite. Asked if he was okay and even asked me how I was, even though I didn't know her. She did nothing wrong. But that didn't seem to matter. He just fixed her with those eyes of his and said, "I'm busy. Please go away."  
  
I should have said something. Should have looked shocked or angry or something like that. But I didn't. I just sat there. Because a strange new part of me, despite being a little shocked at his rudeness, was suddenly very glad that he said that.  
  
Very glad. And very relieved.  
  
I'm being selfish. I should tell him that I'm okay, that he doesn't need to hang around a loser like me. Something.. anything like that.  
  
But I won't. I can't.  
  
Because I need him. Because he's real. The only thing real enough and solid enough that I can cling to right now. Because if he had walked off to chat with that other girl I might have just died. Because right now I'm so scared and crying inside and he's the only one who will cry with me.  
  
Because. Because in some strange way that I simply cannot fathom..  
  
I think I love him.  
  
Oh God. Things are not better than they were before.  
  
Now they're worse.  
  
Oh God.. Please God I can't take this. Don't make me cry again. I don't want to have to cry in front of him again. I've done it too many times lately.  
  
Please. Please. I don't want to feel stupid again. I don't want his sympathy.  
  
I can feel the tears rolling down my face. I can hear my breath hitching.  
  
Please God. I don't want this.  
  
I want..  
  
I want his love not his pity. I want us to make each other laugh, not make each other miserable.  
  
Please God. I want his..  
  
His..  
  
Why is he touching my face?  
  
* * *  
  
She's crying again. She's been doing that a lot lately. It always starts the same way. A single, lonely tear running down her face, creeping slowly down toward her chin. Then suddenly bursting forth in a torrent, her breath hitching and becoming fitful.  
  
Other than that, she never makes a sound when she cries. No screams, no groans, only a flood of tears and laboured breathing. Always this sudden, silent release.  
  
It kills me. It just breaks my heart to see it.  
  
She cries like she's all alone.  
  
I had decided it was enough for me to just be with her. To be together, not alone. That's the most important thing.  
  
But..  
  
Why is she crying like this?  
  
Does she still believe she's alone? Doesn't she realize that I'm here. That WE'RE here?  
  
Why can't I protect her? Why can't I help her when she needs it?  
  
My hand reaching out and gently touching her cheek, tilting her head to face mine.  
  
My mouth forming the words "Please don't cry" but losing them somewhere in the depths of my throat as she looks up at me.  
  
I never meant to kiss her.  
  
But it all came back. That feeling. That bond. Still the same after all these months. More painful but more exhilarating. I fell in love with Maho all over again.  
  
Besides, what else could I do?  
  
That feeling wasn't the only thing that came back. Something else came with it.  
  
Want. Desire.  
  
I want.. something more.  
  
I want..  
  
I want..  
  
Her.  
  
A stray thought whizzed through my consciousness.  
  
Damn it Hideaki, you think too much.  
  
It made me grin.  
  
* * *  
  
This isn't happening. I'm dreaming.  
  
But.. But his hand, he's touching my face. Is.. is he going to..  
  
A wide and startling grin suddenly burst out on his face. For a brief moment it made me smile back.  
  
He's just trying to cheer me up. My smile disappeared. Strangely, it popped back.  
  
Well, at least he's being Asaba again. That's the first grin this week.  
  
Sigh. Still, just this once, couldn't it be something more?  
  
My mouth formed an odd union between a smile and a grimace and decided to stay that way.  
  
I guess a smile's better than nothing.  
  
Of course, that's when he leaned in and kissed me.  
  
* * *  
  
I didn't expect her to kiss me back. I guess deep down I was expecting a rerun of the last time I kissed her. Of course I was hoping that wouldn't happen but hope never quite conquers fear.  
  
I never even dared to hope that she'd kiss me back like this though.  
  
I can't breathe. A vacant thought. It doesn't matter. This is wonderful. I don't want it to stop. I feel.. happy. Happy and also sad.  
  
We are drowning.  
  
Where did that come from?  
  
I can feel her, simultaneously radiating joy, misery, fear and desperation. Pouring it into me through the kiss, all the things she can't say put forth into action.  
  
I love her. Suddenly, startlingly nothing more than a fact. Nothing so remarkable.  
  
Fear. Why am I so frightened?  
  
Will this all disappear when we stop? Is this a dream? Does she see into me the way I seem to see her? Is this growing up?  
  
We are drowning. Again. I understand it this time. We are clinging to each other, trying to stay afloat in a world far to large and frightening to understand.  
  
Happiness. I'm not alone. There is another at the end of the world.  
  
Tears escape from my eyes and pool in the space where our cheeks meet.  
  
I don't want this to stop. I'm afraid of what will happen when it does.  
  
All to soon however, it does stop. A breath only lasts so long. A finite moment. All too much of a reminder of mortality.  
  
We pull apart slowly, panting for breath. I'm afraid.  
  
Please don't let this be the end.  
  
I force my eyes to rise toward her face, reinventing fear at what I might find there.  
  
A timid, frightened smile.  
  
"Thank you." Barely audible.  
  
Palpable relief. It forces my lips into a large grin.  
  
The tears still drain slowly from her eyes. She's still crying.  
  
But.. there's something different about it this time. Despite the tears there is a smile on her lips and her eyes are sparkling with something I can't define.  
  
Gradually it widens, and bursts into an odd mixture of laughter and that indefinable other. It strikes me that in a strange way her tear-stained face is almost unbearably beautiful.  
  
For no reason at all I find tears in my own eyes.  
  
* * *  
  
It's strange. I can't stop crying.  
  
My lips still tingle from where he kissed me. A thousand and one thoughts buzz loudly through my head but pass too quickly to be understood. I feel as if I might explode with the sudden, blaring confusion of it all.  
  
Isn't this what I wanted?  
  
This confusion, this sudden lack of control. Is this happiness?  
  
I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to scream out at the heavens but I have no idea what I would say.  
  
I guess I never thought about what I would do if I ever got what I wanted.  
  
All I can do right now is breathe, each breath it's own confusing eternity, yet also a reminder of reality, something to cling to, something that makes sense among all the anarchy that exists in my head.  
  
Why do I feel more frightened than I ever have before? Why do I feel lighter than I ever have before? Why do I feel as if something inside me is both dying and growing at the same time?  
  
Why do I still have no control?  
  
Just this once..  
  
I think I can live with it.  
  
Just this once, I think I can keep smiling.  
  
* * *  
  
A loud rumble from my stomach pulls me back from my introspection. Maho bursts into a fit of giggles. I can't stop the shamefaced look that appears on my face. Somehow, it clears the air.  
  
"Hey, Maho? Have you eaten yet?" My mojo makes itself known with a sudden, mischievous inspiration.  
  
"No, not yet."  
  
"All of a sudden I feel like Chinese. What do you say? School can live without us for one afternoon. I happen to know a really great restaurant."  
  
"Sure!"  
  
Laughing, we make our way out of school grounds and toward the train station.  
  
* * *  
  
It's kind of weird the way things have turned out. It's strange the way a year can change you. Slowly over the last few months I've been coming back again and again to this little diary I started so long ago.  
  
A whole year? Has it been that long? Sometimes it seems as if it had only been the space of a heartbeat, other times it's as if it has been an eternity.  
  
Maho and I have grown very close over the last few months. There's been quite a commotion at school about it. I've found a lot of letters from my fan club girls in my locker. The contents of these letters vary a lot but the strange thing is that many of them are supportive.  
  
In my own mind, I can't really see where I've changed from what I was like when I first come to this school, but I think I must have changed in a big way. I've noticed that people have gradually begun to treat me differently. I think they must see me a different way now days.  
  
My fan girls are the most obvious. They've nearly all drifted away now. Maybe they found that they weren't quite as in love with me as they thought. I guess I'm not really sure.  
  
I'm not the only one who has changed, though. Yukino and Arima have finally found what seems to be a happy medium. They're still very much in love and Arima keeps on about marriage after graduation. Yukino stubbornly insists that she's too young but smiles every time he brings it up.  
  
In our last conversation, Arima confessed that he thinks she's right about being too young. He says he's just teasing her. But something in his eyes makes me disbelieve him.  
  
That conversation was over a week ago. We've drifted apart over the last few weeks and I hardly even see him now. We're still friends and still get along but something has changed. I don't think we need each other anymore.  
  
Tonami and Sakura finally got together as well. Tonami dotes on her and she yells at him a lot but gets antsy whenever he's not around. It's kind of funny in a way.  
  
I've taken to writing a lot lately. I guess I really must enjoy it. Mostly poetry or just thoughts, stuff like that. It's all pretty bad but I think I'm getting better.  
  
One day I'll give this little diary to you, Maho. All the things I've wanted to say to you but never had the words to do so. I'm not ready yet, but I think I will be soon. Just as soon as things settle down. I know we don't get along perfectly, I know I'm not nearly as good as you deserve, but I really do love you.  
  
I want you to know that. Somehow, I think you already might.  
  
* * *  
  
I still cry a lot. Sometimes I wake up in the night feeling frightened and disorientated. My head spins and I feel like a violin string wound five octaves too high. I have nightmares most nights. That old feeling of confusion isn't ready to leave yet. I still feel ugly.  
  
Asaba cries too sometimes, but only when he thinks I don't see him. Life is still very hard. We fight a lot.  
  
We never break up though. I think sometimes that we're just too frightened to let go of each other. I also wonder whether that's a good or a bad thing.  
  
I still haven't decided. But I think I'm getting closer to thinking it's a good thing.  
  
I really do believe that I love him. I believe he loves me too. I guess I really can't complain too much. It could be worse.  
  
I guess it could be a lot worse.  
  
I stay over at Asaba's place a lot. My mother thinks I'm becoming a delinquent. I'm sure she also thinks I'm a sex freak.  
  
The funny thing is, we've only made love once so far. I guess I could tell her that but I don't think she'd believe me. The truth is that I'm often afraid to go to sleep. When I wake in the night feeling like I've just stepped off the planet it's nice to have a bit of reality to cling to.  
  
To my future self..  
  
I hope that this will be the last entry in this little scrapbook of mine. I still hope you never read this.  
  
But if you do..  
  
Are you happy? Sad? Do you feel?  
  
Are you still with Hideaki? I hope you are.  
  
Because right now I think I'm still crying a little inside.  
  
Because right now I think that if he left..  
  
I might just die.  
  
THE END  
  
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Author's Notes:  
  
Well, well folks. That is the end to this little saga of mine. THE END!! Drumroll please!  
  
Seriously though, this fic has become a lot different to what I had intended when I first started writing it. It was originally supposed to be a one shot, comprised of the first chapter only. But then I thought about Asaba and the second chapter appeared. Things just went on from there. Now it's reached a total of around 35,000 words and is currently the second longest Kare Kano fic on ff net. I never imagined that the story would be so big!  
  
On a bit of a side note, has anyone noticed the poem in the chapter titles? Just a short little thing that I thought was kinda cute.  
  
Somewhere around the third or fourth chapter I started to really regret writing this in first person. It's so difficult to express many things to the reader when limited to one person's viewpoint. However now I'm actually glad I did it the way I did. It turned out far better than I had any right to expect.  
  
I wrote this mostly because I really like Maho, she's a lot like me and there just didn't seem to be any stories about her. I guess I have a thing for the underdogs. They always seem to be my favourite characters. Heh. ^_^. Everyone seems to like writing Yuki and Arima. They even popped up a fair bit in my story! Not that that's bad, but well.. like I said, there just aren't enough stories about Maho. ;)  
  
This is getting kinda long winded so I'd better wrap it up.  
  
Thanks go out to my faithful beta readers Paul Corrigan, Jen "Chen Yingzhen and Tytus Mak. Give them a round of applause. This story would have been far more error prone without their help.  
  
Thanks also to all the people who took the time to comment. I'm so glad that people have read this and enjoyed it.  
  
Well, that's all for now. Thanks for reading this far. Check out my profile if you want to see what I'm working on now.  
  
Ja ne,  
  
Cheshire Grin Wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com 


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